by Hal Duncan
“Come on, you bitches! Grab your weapons! Follow me!”
Bitches, harpies, furies, Phreedom's girls are on their feet in seconds, swatting iron darts aside like gnats and streaming out into the mob of villagers, stolen rupters flashing, shattering the rash attack. Boys playing at cowboys and Indians, angels and demons, Hinter's knights against her brood of dragons, they don't have the first idea of what this kind of fight is really like, and her guerrilla force, hardened with years of warfare in the wilderness, hits them like foxes let loose in a chicken coop.
It's a rout. Wounded men run from the women, firing blind behind them as they try to escape being torn in pieces by the Bacchae, shouting prayers for some deity's intervention as they fall. Phreedom brings one of them down and straddles him as he lies there scrabbling on the ground, screaming for mercy. She hushes him with a hand over his mouth and nose, clamped there until his heels stop drumming.
She cups her hands under the stream of water trickling from the rock and takes a sip, splashes the rest over her face; it runs down red over the chicken-bone necklace and between her breasts. Across the ridge, the others kneel before their own created springs, washing off the blood. The rupters driven into the stone look like strange mountain shrines, she thinks, crosses raised upon the rock and hung with fluttering hides, the half-naked scarlet women on their knees before them, hands moving from spouting water to their faces as if in ritual or prayer. A low hum comes from all the staffs, rising and falling in the rhythm of breath, the sound of streaming water merging with it. It's the music of power, of the chi-energies of the earth beneath their feet, of the Vellum itself being tapped, and the bitmites on her arm snake in time with it; she feels them stretching up over her shoulder, tickling her neck, licking her jaw, her cheek. They're a part of this world now, in the dust that blows upon the wind, in the soil, the rock, and in their own flesh. She used to think of them as hers, these black sprites that have turned the world into heaven and hell on earth. Now she just thinks of them as her.
She pulls the brass disrupter out of the rock and feels the hum of it die in her hand. Even the weapons designed to fight the bitmites have been transformed by them, rebuilt to specifications that the bitmites gleaned from dreams and nightmares. The angels still fire bolts of brute energy but these weapons, her weapons, their weapons, carry information in their blasts, signals that can turn an enemy to dust, yes, but that can just as easily drill a hole into a world of water or a sea of wine hidden beneath the surface of some ragged patch of Vellum.
It's really quite simple, she's come to understand: The bitmites have no hidden agenda of their own, no secret schemes to steal the world, only a basic need to answer every voice, to serve, to give humanity what it desires—power and freedom, justice and revenge, a simple life, a glorious death.
And what does she want? Her brother back? The son they stole from her? The heads of the fucking unkin bastards that tore her world apart: angels, demons, the fucking lot of them? To be drunk with Finnan under the stars in a trailer park in the Mojave Desert, laughing at his crazy fantasies of mystery and magic, thrilling at the thought of all the wild adventures possible in his imagination? To find the angel Metatron, demand that he rewrite the destiny graved in her flesh—her past, her present and her future too—demand he give her back Thomas and Jack? A revenge or a… return?
What do any of them really want?
The Beasts Among Us
“So whoever he may be, m'sire,” says Guy, “accept this spirit here within the city, suffer him or flee. His powers reach so wide, my lord; I've even heard it said he gave the vine to us as sorrow's cure. And if you drive the wine away, then every human joy is dead.”
“And you?”
Pierrot glowers at me.
“What do you say?”
“I am afraid to speak my mind before the king,” I sing. “But I will say one thing. There is no spirit greater than the Harlequin.”
“You hear this?” says Pierrot. “The audacity of these wild beasts right here among us.”
He points at Jack, at me, but he's addressing Guy.
“In all hell's eyes,” he says, “we're all disgraced. We must act now, swift as electric fire. Go to the gate and give the order. Tell the soldiers—buckle on their swords and bring their shields. Gather the riders mounted on their steeds, and bring my archers out to make their bowstrings sing. We march against the whores!”
Guy, as the messenger, goes running from the stage.
“I swear,” snarls Pierrot, “it would be rich if we allowed ourselves to be defied by these hysterical bitches.”
“Still stubborn, Pierrot?” says Jack. “Despite my warning?”
He climbs slowly to his feet. Pierrot's knife turns, pointing at him, at arm's reach.
“Is it impossible to shut this stranger up?” he says to me. “In chains or out of them, he speaks too free.”
‘And you should thank me for it. Even after the mistreatment I've endured from your hands,” Jack says, “still, I warn you: Bearing arms against this spirit is a sin. I tell you, stop this now; the Harlequin will not allow you to disrupt his revelers.”
“Disrupt? I'll drive them from the mountains. I will drive them out.”
“There'll be a rout, all right. You'll all be put to flight—and put to shame when with their little sticks they crush your armored warriors, your shining knights. You kick against the pricks in rage when you should sacrifice to him. You're dust, Pierrot, and the Harlequin is king.”
Pierrot slashes at him with the knife. Jack staggers back, a slice across his chest. Under the leather a thin trickle of red blood begins to flow
“I'll give him sacrifice!” says Pierrot. ? wholesale slaughter of his women on the hills. I'll give them what they're due. No, I'll not listen to you tell me what to do. So you've escaped your chains; now keep your peace or you can feel my steel again.”
TAKE THE POWER BACK
“Fuck you,” says Jack. “Come on, then. Fucking try it.”
He's right up in Joey's face, and it takes all that Joey's got not to just deck the stupid fucker, but he reins his anger in. He holds it back for at least a second before his hands are up and slamming into Jack's chest, palm-first, shoving him back and away. Jack bounces off the wall and comes right back with one step, then another; his own hands slam into Joey, and again, and again. Then they've got each other by the T-shirts, by Joey's torn and sleeveless white tee, Jack's black-and-red-striped top, and they're pulling each other around like it's the mosh pit, but this time the snarling spitting venom is more than mock fury, more than raging glory in teenage kicks, headlocks and roars of animal joy. This time, as Jack shoves Joey away from him, there's no crowd to catch him, throw him back, just a chair to go tumbling behind him and a desk to rattle, papers scattering onto the floor at his side. Fox's plans for revolution.
Joey grabs a fistful of paper, holds it crumpled up in front of him.
“Fuck this,” he says. “This is—”
“Bollocks,” says Jack. “They'll never catch us.”
He leans against the brick wall, darts a glance over his shoulder, round the corner, then looks back at Joey, grinning. Joey grabs a handful of shoulder and leans round Jack to see for himself. There are ten, maybe twelve of the razor kids hanging outside the Grosvenor, empty bottles of Buckfast, Thunderbird and Mad Dog 20/20 clinking at their feet. The leader perches on a crossbar of scaffolding, one arm on an upright to steady himself, the other dangling down between his legs. Head monkey, Joey thinks. King Ned. His chief lieutenants lean against the square pillars of the burnt-out cinema building's entrance, smoking fags and arguing over the pills in high-pitched nasal whines—aye, right—aye, too fuckin right, ya fuckin prick—these are pure shite, man, by the way. The others mill and jostle each other, one of them playing with his chib, flicking the cutthroat open and closed, open and closed. These urnae fuckin anyhin. Ahm gonae kill that cunt Narco.
Joey swings back round the corner.
“Up an
d over,” he says.
He points at the second-level gantries, the scaffolding and prefabs that all but swallow up the cobbled lane. They could get by without even being seen.
“You take the high road,” says Jack. “I'm going straight through.”
And Joey has no time to argue because Jack's already gone, legging it down the cobbles, weaving past the swing of a chib and ducking a bottle that smashes on a wall, grabbing scaffolding and swinging up, too fast and agile surely for any of these little shits to catch while they're strung out on the dog tranquilizers Joey sold them. Surely …
“Fuck,” says Joey.
He starts running after Jack.
“Come on,” says Joey.
He grabs Jack by the collar of his piper jacket, drags him up enough so he can latch an arm and haul him to his feet. Jack stands there dazed, looking down at the militiaman, at the truncheon with the blood and hair being washed from it into the puddle in the gutter, at the crowbar with the blood and hair and bone.
“You killed him. You fucking killed him, Joey.”
“Come on.”
Jack pulls his arm away and wipes a rivulet of red from his left eye, blood dribbling from his flame hair, running thin in the torrential rain, streaking his face. He's in a bad way. If Joey hadn't got to him in time …
He snorts blood, wipes it from his nose and cut lip with a flicking hand. Spits it in the militiaman's broken face.
“Come on,” says Joey.
An ornithopter searchlight sweeps the alleyway, a heavenly ray illuminating them as Jack limps back, then turns to take a running kick at the dead man, screaming abuse. Joey looks up into the raindrops sparkling as they fall through the bright flood of light.
“Come on!”
“Come on,” says Joey. “Skybikes against militia ornithopters?”
He throws the crumpled sheet at Jack.
‘And guns all along the east wall of the Rookery,” says Jack. ‘And with the reinforcements Anaesthesia's bringing back—”
“We don't even know if she's coming back herself. She's gone. She's lost.”
“It doesn't matter. We only have to hold the line till King Finn reaches the ICI plant. Once we take that we have the whole city's fucking power.”
That's the plan. A push out of the Rookery, a wall of fire laid down along the river so King Finn and his men can make it down to Finnieston, down to the docklands, the airshipyards and the orgone manufactory. Jack in the skies. Guy and Puck in the Rookery coordinating its defense, all of them just trying to hold that line long enough for Finn to … take the power back.
“And they're with us, Joey. The workers there are with us—Jesus, Joey, this is it. If you can't fucking see that, if you can't fucking hack it, then fuck you.”
Joey grabs the corner of the desk and pulls himself to his feet.
“It'll be a fucking massacre,” he says. “You think they won't take out the plant? I'm telling you, you'll be lucky if they don't level Kentigern and sow the fucking ground with salt. Can't stop the children of the revolution, eh Jack? You have no fucking idea how far they'll go. You want a city of martyrs, Jack? Is that what you want?”
“I want freedom,” says Jack. “What the fuck do you want?”
“World peace,” says Joey. “Fuck you.”
The Savage Spirits
The Duke is rapt, gripped by this picture of a royal mind unraveling, of a tyrant calling down his fate. There are a million Dukes of Hell across the Vellum since the Hinter tore the Covenant apart, and each self-styled Asmodeus or Beelzebub is just a rival, just another enemy, just one more threat to this one's precious city-state.
Pierrot's just one of them, to him, one of the fools he hates. We'd all been worried that he'd watch the play so long and then catch on but, no, I guess we underestimated just how dim this gray lord is. As Hitler loved his Wagner, loved to watch the gods destroy themselves, Valhalla burning to the ground, our Duke's won over easily by the promise of a violent end, of seeing Pierrot brought down.
What's new? I think. A lot of bluster and a little blood. Some folks are always easily amused.
“Friend, there is still one way to heal this hate,” says Jack.
‘And how is that?” says Pierrot. ‘Am I supposed to bow to my own slaves?”
He snorts. The Duke snorts with him. Angels, I think: Even with the Covenant broken, Gabriel and his goons still see themselves as lords, still see humanity as beasts, as monsters, slaves to be subdued. Even despite the fact that Metatron's Republic fell, these tinpot tyrants think they have the right to quell the savage spirits of upstart humanity. And so they build their Havens as these dreams of order, rule them as new Dukes of Hell.
My sister, Phreedom, should be out there in the Hinter now, out gathering the rebel souls, the wild things, nature's children, all those who'd choose flesh and the chaos that goes with it over this … scotch mist. That was the story, anyway, as King Finn told it, as Guy wrote it down … but sometimes stories take unusual twists.
“I'll bring the women here for you unarmed,” says Jack.
“This is some crafty scheme of yours,” says Pierrot. “I won't be charmed.”
“What kind of scheme is it, to keep both you and them from harm?”
The Princess is giving her attention now to something other than the play; she's watching Guy intently as he drops down from the wagon, at the far side of the stage from where the Harlequin and Pierrot act out this age-old fight between chaos and order, the nemesis of human nature and the hubris of the state. He slips along the far wall of the hall, sneaking under the torches so he doesn't cast a shadow in their light, around behind the crowd, behind the throne, to where she sits below the Duke and at his side.
“You're in with them,” Pierrot's saying. “It's a plot so that your wine will flow forever.”
“No,” says Jack. “You can be sure, however, that that pact's already made with the divine.”
“Bring me my weapons,” calls Pierrot. ‘And not one more word from you”
The Princess lets Guy take the goblet from her hand. He whispers something in her ear that makes her shake her head, brows furrowed; it's a long time since she heard that name, I bet—eternity, perhaps. It's hard to read the words upon her lips from here, but I can guess.
Phreedom … she says.
“Pierrot, wait,” says Jack.
A pause. It is the moment of Pierrot's doom.
“I'll give you what you really want.”
The Princess Anaesthesia, our forgotten Phreedom, looks at Jack across the cold, stone room. And whispers, Yes.
Errata
—
The Shape of Things to Come
Your brother knew what Himmler was planning, didn't he?” says Pickering. “He found out about Operation Hummingbird. He knew that Himmler was going to purge the SA, slaughter the last remnants of the old order and raise a new army from the ashes of the old. Fascism would be dead, Futurism victorious. He was willing to do anything to stop that, wasn't he?”
“How many times do I have to tell you, Major Pickering, I am not Reinhardt von Strann. I know nothing about the man other than what I have already told you. I know he had a brother in the SA but—”
“ You had a brother in the SA. You, Reinhardt von Strann.”
“I am not that man. My name is Reynard. I am a French citizen.”
“You are the brother of Johann von Strann, of this so-called Jack Flash. You know what he is.”
“No.”
“You know what he made himself.”
“No.”
“You know how he did it.”
“No, I tell you—”
“The Eye of the Weeping Angel—”
“I don't—”
“A ritual in your family home in Strann.”
“My name is—”
“Tell me what he did!”
——
I feel a sickening lurch, like the ground itself moving beneath my feet as I stagger from the chair and he tu
rns the open book toward me—it moves, oh God, the text itself is moving—and all the whirling, churning vortex of text resolves into a swastika inked in red and black upon the aged, yellowed manuscript.
“Hypnosis,” I'm saying, “mesmerism. It isn't real. It isn't.”
No, I tell myself desperately, it's just some fake, some forgery, some nineteenth-century Romantic fancy full of inscrutable hieroglyphs, grotesque illustrations, bound in black leather and written on skin warm to the touch, like it's alive and crawling with insect language, crawling right into your mind. Oh, God.
I back away from him.
“Drugs,” I say, “it's drugs. You've drugged me. Drugs and hypnosis.”
“The Book of All Hours,” he says. “A book of everything that ever was or wasn't written, not just our history, not just our future, but every history, every future. Written in the language of the angels. A living language, Fox. The Logos. The Word of God. The Cant. Look at it, Fox. This is what the first shaman saw when he looked into the fire he stole from Heaven. This is the shape of everything.”
And I can see it in the book, the whole of history twisting in that maelstrom of a forgotten symbol, truth warping around the myth and spewing out, in spiral arms, a million brave newworlds, spinning as a galaxy of constellations of chance and change. The book barely binds it, can hardly contain it. It's pushing at the edges, trying to break through into our world, into reality, existence.
“Close it,” I say. “Close the book.”
“Look at it,” he says. “The Book of All Hours. You know what Himmler thinks it is? I'm not sure how much the Russian knows—I don't understand his part in this—but Himmler thinks it's just some spellbook, some pathetic little gri-moire for conjuring demons.”