Alex is obviously far from convinced, but he doesn’t object. He just nods.
‘You can stay out of the monster for a bit if you want,’ I say. ‘Until we reach trouble or something. But you will need to get back in it.’
‘Fine.’
‘OK. I’ll keep it with us.’
Just then, a bright orange explosion erupts on the horizon, over the river somewhere. Both of us jump. ‘Damn,’ I say.
‘What do you think it was?’
‘Not sure. Hold on, we’re going up.’ I fly the three of us to the edge, up and over the water, depositing us on the other side, and we walk in the direction of the explosion, the monster suspended in the air above us. The closer we get, the more we can hear. Sirens. Smaller explosions. A fog of voices, muted by distance. I’m not feeling any less unsettled, so I decide to break the silence. ‘So. How old are you?’
‘Nineteen.’
‘Ah. I’m eighteen.’ He doesn’t respond, but I’m undaunted. ‘How old were you when you first got your powers?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Your animal-control thing. How old were you when you first realised you could do it? I’ve never heard of anyone with that power.’
‘It’s not . . . I dunno. I was fifteen when I first did it, but I used herbs at first. Incense. It didn’t just come naturally.’
‘Really?’ This is new and interesting. ‘What did you do?’
‘Just burned them. Hot-boxed my bedroom until it was basically all I was breathing, and then . . .’
‘What happened?’
‘I don’t really want to—’
‘I don’t really care.’ It comes out harsher than I’d intended. ‘What happens when you do it?’
He’s constantly looking at the ground as he walks. ‘I . . . it’s changed as I’ve got better at it. At first I just kind of . . . I left my body. Floated around. Like . . . my essence or something. And I’d just fly around until I found something I liked, and I’d go inside it, and then I’d be . . . it. Still me, but . . . not as much.’
‘Not as much?’
‘Just . . . I’d know things. Know who I was. The animal never took over. But I could feel everything that that made it . . . it. If you see what I mean.’
‘I do a bit.’
‘But then I . . .’ He stops for a few too many seconds, and I think that’s all I’m getting, but then he presses on. ‘I worked out that I didn’t need the herbs. That I could do it by thinking. It took a long time, but now I can do it just by looking at an animal for a second.’
‘Fairish.’
He shrugs. We walk for another minute before I decide to keep hacking away at the ol’ ice. ‘You’re from London, then?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Which part?’
‘I don’t live here anymore. Used to live south. I’ve been away for a while.’
‘Why did you come back?’
‘None of your business.’
‘Where’d you go?’
‘Also none of your business.’
‘Whatev—’
‘Seriously, I said it’s none of your fucking business.’
‘Fine. Jeez.’ I decide not to attempt any more conversation starters. I don’t know how long we walk for. I can still feel those spiders’ legs on my skin, and checking my hand is still attached has almost become a nervous reflex.
A fox runs across the road just ahead of us, looking almost cartoonish. I laugh and look at Alex, but he doesn’t even smile, just stares at the animal until it vanishes into a peninsula of shadows. His expression has shifted oddly. I can see the pain from before, the anger. His fists are clenched. ‘You all right?’
‘Fine.’ I don’t press him.
We pass a park and I remember meeting Kloe at St. James Park last year, the surprise of my life. Well, one of the many, many surprises. Definitely the best, at any rate. That threatens to send me down a dangerous tangent so I bury the thought. Something else I’m getting surprisingly good at.
A car zooms past, packed with people and luggage. The orange light from the lampposts seems fatigued, there are brighter red and blue flashes coming from far away, and another explosion kicks fiery shards into the sky. I can hear smashing glass and yelling, sounds like it’s coming from the next street. ‘You ready to get back in that thing?’ I gesture towards the hovering monster. Alex nods and I set the beast down on the pavement. He stares at it briefly and then collapses. This time I think I can feel the swapping of essences, a strange velvety breeze beneath the air that makes me shiver. The creature wraps Alex’s body up in its tentacles and lifts him onto its back. ‘Stay here for a minute,’ I say. ‘I’ll check it out first.’
I jog down the road and around the corner. Up ahead is a big electronics shop, its front window smashed. A boy and a girl, neither of whom can be much older than me, are climbing out on to the pavement, one hefting a massive television, the other with armloads of random audio equipment. I find it slightly unbelievable and . . . infuriating. A time like this, and they’re looting? It makes me so angry that I stride towards them. ‘What the hell are you muppets doing?’
Both of them stop dead, rooted to the spot, staring at me. The boy looks me up and down, obviously deciding that a skinny barefooted kid in hospital pyjamas isn’t any kind of threat, and manages some sneering bluster. ‘None of your fucking business, mate.’ Everyone seems to want me to mind my own effing business.
Maybe I should give that a go.
All the items that they’re carrying fly out of their hands and across the street, shattering as they hit concrete, sparks and glass and plastic flying. The boy and the girl gasp and clutch each other, and I walk slowly towards them, rising about three feet off the ground for effect. ‘Everything. Is going. To hell.’ I gesture around, just in case they haven’t noticed. ‘And that’s not a metaphor, you knob heads. The city is literally dying around us. And you’re stealing TVs? Why the hell am I trying to save you useless people?’ My furious thoughts yank several more televisions, a hi-fi and some speakers through the obliterated window of the shop and they land like a ring of bombs around the girl and boy, who scream and grab at one another more desperately.
OK, Stanly, stop.
They’re terrified.
I realise that I’m shaking and drop clumsily to the ground, ashamed. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I . . . yeah. Just . . . do what you want.’
I turn and start walking away, and the girl pipes up behind me, ‘We weren’t hurting anyone!’
‘Go and help some people,’ I say, not looking back. ‘Or just . . . get out of the city.’ I hear them run and shake my head. ‘You wouldn’t even be able to pick up any TV channels. Cretins.’
I return to the corner and motion for Alex to come. The creature walks towards me and I make some momentary calculations. I can see the Shard from here. I definitely have plans to hit there, but my number-one priority has to be the primary research site. We walk on, passing several cars obviously desperate to get out of London. I wonder how long I was in that prison and wish I’d thought to ask Alex. It would be nice to know what kind of timeframe I’m dealing with . . . although I suppose it’s academic. Things have deteriorated massively, however long it’s been.
We take a left turn and I stop dead, as does Alex, because there is a monster up the road. It’s at least nine feet tall and a burnt red colour, its three legs ending in cloven hooves – yeah, literally – and it has long powerful-looking arms and an elongated triangular head. Even from here I can see light glistening off the razors that line its mouth. It’s standing over a young man, and for a moment I think he’s dead and that it’s preparing to chow down but then I see that he’s trying vainly to crawl away, shaking with silent, terrified tears. The monster’s not in a hurry. It’s playing with him. It raises one clawed hand almost lazily, ready to swipe at him, but I thin
k stop, halting its attack. It feels what I’ve done, snaps to attention and emits a low angry buzzing sound. I’m about to drag it in for a beating when Alex leaps straight over my head like a show-jumping horse, drops his unconscious body next to me and barrels towards the demon, shrieking with his host’s weird siren. The monster lunges to attack but Alex ducks under the slicing swing of its claws, grabs both its arms with his tentacles and snaps them back against themselves with a sickening crunch of bone. The red monster is howling a nails-on-a-blackboard combination of high-frequency scream and grating buzz, but it’s helpless as Alex brutally takes out both its legs with his tentacles. Then, gripping it around its waist, he does a sort of sideways body slam, crushing it against the road with every ounce of his solid bulk. The thing lies there, spasming, its droning buzz gradually fading. Alex lets go and trots back towards me in the manner of a dog that’s just pulled off a clever trick for its master. The young man has been watching the fight, transfixed, and I yell, ‘Hey! You! Run away now!’ He jerks in fright, scrambles hurriedly to his feet and sprints away. Just as well because now an army truck emerges from round the corner further up the road, accompanied by four soldiers on foot and . . .
A tank?
Sigh.
I mentally lasso the Alex beast and his helpless human body and pull them both out of the way as the soldiers let rip with their machine guns. I think the bullets off-course, keeping my eye on the tank. Bullets I can handle, but the tank is massive and probably extremely heavy . . .
Which means nothing, remember?
Soldiers, tanks, it’s all just stuff.
Up go the four soldiers, flipping upside down and flying in different directions, bouncing against walls and lampposts. Over goes the truck, onto its back, wheels spinning indignantly like a helpless insect. I turn to the tank, which has swung its gun barrel around, bringing it to bear on Alex and me, and think miss just as it erupts. The fiery projectile zooms past us and hits a building further up the road, letting loose a thunderous explosion. I think open and the hatch on top obeys me, and I feel three people inside and think out. One by one they’re pulled through the hatch, yelling and swearing, arms and legs flailing, and I toss them aside like toys and think bend. With a wrenching grind, the tank’s gun barrel twists around itself, rendered useless.
Most of the soldiers are back on their feet now but Alex is already on them, bashing away with his lethal tentacles. ‘Leave one conscious!’ I yell, just in time. He stops short of smashing the last soldier against the floor, coils a tentacle around his waist and lifts him up. Dragging Alex’s human body in the air behind me, I run down the road and quickly deprive the soldier of his helmet. He’s quite young, maybe late twenties, with brown curly hair. It’s weird seeing a soldier with a face. ‘You know what I can do,’ I say.
He nods.
‘Tell me what’s going on.’
He answers reluctantly. ‘We’ve been trying to keep order . . . there’s been rioting. People started attacking patrols and police across the city. Lots of people just ran, trying to get as far away from London as possible, what with the snow and the sky. And the . . . creatures.’
‘But the Angel Group don’t want anyone getting out?’
‘All exits were blocked off a few hours ago. London has to stay sealed.’
‘So they can contain the chaos.’
‘Yes.’
‘Are there lots more monsters?’
‘Sightings have increased massively in the last hour.’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘Well I want you to get on the blower to the other armed forces and tell them that this monster,’ I nod in Alex’s direction, ‘is not an enemy. And neither am I. We’re trying to help. We’re trying to sort out the Angel Group’s rather epic balls-up.’
‘We’re trying to—’
‘Help? It’s nice that you think so. Get on it.’
‘Tell everyone to leave him alone? You’ve got to be joking. You just attacked—’
‘Fine.’ I’m all set to clonk him one on the head, but an alternative idea occurs. I think sleep as an experiment, visualising the command as a blanket of thought, waves of suggestion enveloping the soldier. If bend works on a gun, why shouldn’t this work on him? Sure enough, his eyes close, his head droops. Wow. Must explore that one further. As I place him on the ground I catch sight of my bare feet again. I’d forgotten. I check the soldiers’ footwear but their military-issue boots are too big for me, so we press on through the shadowed city. All its angles seem odd, the buildings out of proportion, and stranger things are happening; at one point we pass a parked car that seems to be in the process of melting into the floor, the bottoms of its wheels distorted, almost square. Further ahead, I see patches of a weird red fungus on the walls of buildings, rustling in the not-quite-breeze, and every now and then we pass another group of panicked people. No army vehicles, luckily. I tell people to find shelter, that it’ll be over soon. I don’t think my appearance fills them with confidence. Then another explosion tears up the black sky somewhere ahead, and a muffled cheer echoes. Cheering?
Rioters.
Great.
‘Stop here,’ I say. ‘I’m going to go up and have a look.’ I fly straight up through the bubbly air until I can get a decent view. About a mile ahead there is a line of army vehicles and police, and beyond that a huge crowd of screaming civilians, many of them brandishing what look like flaming torches. An amplified voice is telling them that this is their last warning. A Molotov cocktail scythes through the air in response and explodes on a police car, blowing out all its glass and licking the air with fiery spirals, and the army lets loose a retaliatory rain of gas grenades that burst among the rioters. More screaming, plumes of smoke rising, panicked people stumbling, clutching their eyes. Some simply rush through the curtain of gas, blindly wielding whatever weapons they have.
What can I do?
Something.
I think part and to an extent it works. The majority of the fighters fly backwards and sprawl on the floor but they just get up again and launch themselves back into it, like nothing happened. I can’t very well stay up here and part them all night until they get bored . . .
So I go in, flying across the chaotic scene, thinking my way around everybody who isn’t in some kind of uniform, gathering them up in a psychic net and pulling them along with me, out of the melee, out of the violence. I fly down the nearest street, ignoring the furious shouts and frightened screams, even deflecting some projectiles, because of course they’re throwing things at me. ‘I’m trying to help, you dicks!’ I yell. ‘You need to stop!’ I chance a look behind me. The police and army don’t seem to be pursuing, luckily. ‘You’re going to get yourselves arrested, or killed! Get to safety!’ Some people seem appropriately taken aback by the appearance of a flying boy, but mostly they tell me to get knotted, shove it up my arse and – once again – mind my own effing business.
Y’know . . .
I let go, not particularly inclined to cushion anyone’s fall, and stop and turn in the air. Some of them waste no time getting to their feet and running right back the way we came. Some stare up at me, gobsmacked. But the majority, gratifyingly, take the opportunity to run for safer pastures. Or at least, safer than home-made bombs, gas grenades and pissed-off special forces types.
Possibly.
I loop around a building, fly back and drop down next to Alex and the monster. ‘Streets are crazy. We’re going up.’ I think stay close to me and launch back up into the air, high up, further than guns or rockets can reach, gripping Alex and the monster he inhabits with my thoughts. The ceiling of monstrous clouds looks far too close, as does the prowling lightning, and I think a shield around us, hoping it’ll work against such vicious sky electricity. I assume the reason there are no drones is that they’ve all been destroyed by said electricity, and I’d like to avoid that if possible.
I can see much more of the c
ity from up here and it looks terrible. So much fire, so many terrified crowds, and many of the roads and bridges are entirely choked with cars trying to escape. I can just about spot the area where the Jonathan Kulich gallery is and wonder idly how the paintings are looking right about now. We pass back over the river and I glance down, and I’m pretty sure I can see shapes below the surface. That really chills me, and although I feel like I should investigate I really don’t want to. I remember the awful roar from the Tube station and hope I can stop this madness before the owner emerges.
If it hasn’t already.
We touch down on a residential street about ten minutes from Canary Wharf and I spot two elderly people hurrying away from us, a man and a woman, loaded with bags. They remind me of Oliver and Jacqueline and I feel a pang, hoping that they’re all right . . . although my mind lingers uncomfortably over Morter Smith’s words. Where is my daughter.
What if it’s true?
Why would they lie to me?
No time. Definitely no time. I call after the couple. ‘Hey! Where are you going?’
Their heads both turn in my direction, terror in their eyes. ‘The . . . that’s a . . .’ the man splutters, pointing at Alex.
‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘It’s . . . it’s not a bad one. I promise. Please, tell me where you’re going?’
‘We need to get out of the city!’
‘All the exits are blocked,’ I say, wishing I didn’t have to tell them. ‘There’s . . . there’s no getting out.’
‘But we have to get out!’ moans the woman. ‘It . . .’
‘You’re safer in your home at the moment,’ I say. ‘Trust me. Please, just go back. And . . . don’t worry. I’m going to fix everything.’ Everything?
‘How?’ asks the man. ‘You’re just a boy.’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘But . . . trust me.’
They look at one another. The woman seems convinced. Wow, she must be desperate. ‘If he’s telling the truth . . . we probably are safer at the flat, Ronnie.’
Ace of Spiders Page 31