“Don’t you…need that?” Lectern said, but everyone ignored her.
Only one of Skool’s hands was in the air now, and as Deeba stepped to the edge and aimed into the water, whips of weed spiraled out, and pulled it under.
Deeba fired.
There was a roaring boom, a spit of flame. She staggered, but this time Deeba didn’t fall.
The air was filled with the smell of cordite, and also, Deeba realized, of the sea. What’s that about?
Then she saw what was happening in the canal. The water was boiling, frothing, and then was choppy, suddenly covered in waves and white foam that jostled the boats and spattered against the concrete walls.
The UnGun had fired the salt crystal. The fresh—though dirty—water of the canal for meters around had been instantly transformed into brine.
The water seemed confused. It was attempting to mimic the sea. Deeba was sure she heard a gull somewhere overhead. Waves were surging as if the canal were tidal, and slapping against the Diss&Rosa.
Meters to either side, Deeba could see where the new patch of ocean met the regular waters. The edges of the join were perfectly sharp.
Clots of shudderwrack drifted to the surface. Their trembling didn’t look like the healthy, unpleasant motion from which they took their name. One by one they stopped moving.
“What’s happening?” said Deeba.
“That’s what happens when the freshwater variety of shudderwrack suddenly finds itself in…the sea,” Lectern said. She eyed the UnGun in awe. Whatever it is, it always uses its bullet well, Deeba thought. No wonder it’s such a legend.
There was one sudden big wave, and the water broke over the concrete wall, and deposited Skool at their feet, flecked with dying weed, and highly bewildered.
84
Across the Yard
There were noises from the factory.
“They must’ve heard the UnGun,” said Deeba.
“Quick,” said Jones. “Let’s get in before they get here.”
But before they were even halfway across the yard, the door flew open. With a waft of fumes, death, and rotting clothes, smombies began to stagger out of the building.
With Lectern and three binja, the rebels were a decent-sized little gang. But there were twice as many smombies.
Angry-looking corpses swayed and lurched in their direction. The wisps of smoke that curled from their mouths and ears and eyes made them look as if they were smoldering.
The binja stepped forward, twirling their nunchucks and their staffs. They somersaulted into action.
Within seconds they were spinning kicks and twirling blows into the smombies’ bodies. But despite the binja’s skills, the animated dead were tough with the Smog controlling them. They hacked and smashed and kept coming.
Jones joined the melee, but his current was ineffective. Skool swung enormous punches, but so slow even the sluggish smombies could evade them. Deeba leveled the UnGun, but she couldn’t get a shot clear of her friends.
Then, as the smombies seemed to be getting the upper hand, Hemi put his hands to his mouth, and shouted.
At least, it looked like he did. Deeba couldn’t hear a sound.
But in the air around him, faint shapes began to appear. The ghosts! Deeba had forgotten about them. They emerged out of invisibility. There were definitely more of them than there had been when they set out.
Some were in ancient costumes, some in fashions only a couple of years old. All looked stern and aggressive. They put up their hands like boxers and swept through the air towards the smombies.
“But they can’t touch nothing!” Deeba said.
“I told you we don’t take over bodies?” Hemi said. “There’s exceptions. If someone else has done it first, it’s only fair to take the bodies back.”
One by one, the ghosts stretched out their arms like divers and hurled themselves into the smombies. As the dead men and women were entered, they staggered to a stop and began to twitch. Here and there, ghost-hands emerged from the smombies’ chests or backs, and flew back in, pummeling. The smombies rocked on their feet.
“They’re fighting the Smog!” said Deeba. “To take back control!” She widened her eyes at the thought of the battle going on inside those poor, misused bodies, the Smog pouring through innards, chased by the ghosts’ ectoplasm, spectral juices and chemical fumes vying.
“Quick!” Jones ushered them towards the door.
A ghost flew out of a smombie and lay, dazed-looking and semitransparent, on the ground. But elsewhere, Smog was being expelled from smombies’ ears, and the dead bodies were shaking.
“Yes!” said Hemi. He grabbed at the Smog emerging from the nearest smombie, and flexed his hand into an ectoplasmic ghostly state. His spectral hand grabbed the smoke, and he whipped it out of the body and flung it away, dissipating it as it went.
The last Smog-controlled smombies began to hurl stones and lengths of iron past the binja, at the infiltrators.
“Stay down,” said Jones, crawling rapidly for the entrance. Scooching down, Deeba heard a horrible splintering. She turned.
Skool was slow, and could not crouch. A smombie had thrown a particularly heavy jag of iron, and it had landed right in the middle of Skool’s faceplate.
Deeba stared in horror at the asterisk of cracks spreading out in the glass.
“Skool!” shouted Obaday. “Go! Get back to the canal!”
There was no time. Skool reeled and leaned back against the wall, and the glass exploded.
Water burst out of the hole, as if from a broken main.
As the pressure dropped, the diving suit began to crumple and slide down the wall, wrinkling, its head drooping. It looked horribly like a body collapsing.
With wet slapping noises, fish began to gush out of the broken helmet. There were silver ones the size of Deeba’s arm, tiny multicolored ones, an eel, an urchin, a seahorse, a little octopus. They poured onto the lap of the suit and the concrete, and began to flop and gasp.
“Skool!” said Obaday. He crawled over and tried to pick up the fish. They were slippery and flapping frantically.
“Where Deeba shot, it’s still the sea!” he said. “Quick!” He scooped up handfuls of the fish that had worked together to be Skool, and threw them over the heads of the binja, ghosts, and smombies. One by one they landed in the brine. Deeba and the others fumbled to help him.
They worked as quickly as they could, but there were too many to save them all. Slowly, one by one, some fish stopped moving, by the wrinkled-up, emptied-out diving suit.
“Skool never did anyone any harm,” said Obaday, staring stricken at a cod that hadn’t made it. “They spent years refitting the suit, trudged all the way out of the sea to come and live with us, and this is what happens!”
“At least half of Skool made it, Obaday,” Jones said urgently. “I know you want to give the others a decent send-off, but we have to go now.” There were still smombies controlled by Smog, and they were regrouping. Obaday bit his lip, and nodded.
“We can’t let the smombies get back in,” said Lectern. “Or anyone else.” The ghosts were confused, shouting soundlessly, emerging from smombie mouths. Hemi watched.
He opened his mouth and yelled orders that Deeba couldn’t hear, gesturing commands with sudden authority. The ghosts listened, rallied, obeyed, and redoubled their attacks.
“Binja,” hissed Lectern. “Keep them out! Guard the door!”
“There’s only three. They need help,” said Hemi. He hesitated several seconds, and caught Deeba’s eye. “I…I’d better stay too. I can tell my lot what to do.”
“Hemi, no!” said Deeba.
“Look at them!” he said. The ghosts swept in little sorties into the smombie flesh, harassed the Smog inside, rushed out again in guerrilla raids. “They can win, but they need reinforcements and they need my help. And you need to go.
“I’ll be right here. I’ll see you afterwards.” He smiled at her as if he was sure there would be an afterwards.
Deeba was about to argue. Then she slumped, realizing there was no time, and that he was right, so instead she hugged him.
“Now go,” he said urgently, hugging her back hard. “All of you. You saw the unbrella: it’s going to tell Brokkenbroll we’re here, so go now.” He motioned to the door.
“See you soon,” Deeba said. “Soon.”
With one last look at him, Deeba turned, and leaving a little ocean, guards, a chaotic battle, and the bodies of half of one of their friends behind, she entered the darkness of Unstible’s factory.
85
Six of One
Unlit brick passageways stretched in both directions.
“How do we know which way?” she said.
“Sniff,” said the book. The burnt-chemical smell of the Smog was in the air. “Follow that.”
They inhaled experimentally.
“I think it’s stronger…this way,” said Lectern hesitantly.
“Move fast,” said the book. “If you can smell it, it’s around us, and that means it knows you’re here. Hopefully right now it’s too diffuse to be much of a mind, but as it gets thicker, it’s going to think better, too.”
“So by the time we find it, it’ll be ready for us?” Deeba said. “Wicked.”
She hefted her pistol, and moved.
“Be careful with the UnGun,” Jones said.
“But I’m getting better and better with it,” she said.
“That’s not what I mean,” said Jones. He held out his hand and she passed him the weapon. He fiddled with its mechanisms, shook his head, and returned it. “I mean it still won’t open, we can’t reload, and you’ve only got two bullets left. We know the Smog’s scared of it, and you can see why. You’re going to have to use it. Husband your resources.”
They stood together a moment at a junction, the utterlings blinking, Curdle scuffing the floor, Lectern following them reluctantly.
“Jones, Obaday,” whispered Deeba when they moved on. “Is it my imagination, or are Bling and Cauldron…disappearing.”
“It’s not your imagination,” said Obaday. They stared surreptitiously. The silver locust and the eight-limbed little man were both definitely slightly see-through.
“Utterlings don’t last forever,” Jones said. “These two’ve already hung around much longer than most. Maybe getting independent of Mr. Speaker’s the reason, somehow. But we can’t expect them to be here much longer.”
“But…I hate that,” whispered Deeba. “They’re part of the team. There must be something we can do about it.”
“I’m not bananas about it myself,” said Jones.
The smell grew stronger and stronger.
“The workshop was on a top floor,” Deeba said when they reached some stairs. “And…” She sniffed. “There’s more smoke up there.”
“There’s definitely something up there,” said Lectern nervously. Noises of cackling, and gobbling, and animated talking were audible in the stairwell.
The infiltrators ascended, to a closed door. It was from behind that that the sounds were coming. The Smog-stench was thick.
Deeba listened. There were several voices emanating from behind the wood, and they were talking over each other, interrupting and finishing each other’s sentences, in aggressive, boisterous chat.
“I bet you there are six of them,” whispered Jones.
“Oh no,” said the book. “It’s true, the Smog is working with them. That’s the Hex.”
“…long are we going to be waiting?” roared one of the voices.
“Hush—”
“—up, Aye-Aye.”
“Soon, Brolly man says.”
“He says, Ivv.”
“King Smogra’s roaring around, to put the wind up ’em, make everyone practice with brollies—”
“—and tomorrow he’ll move them all around.”
“So what are we, Vee?”
“Don’t you ever pay attention? We’re helping with removals, Vee-Aye.”
“Brolly and Smogula haven’t decided yet, Broll says.”
“They dunno how long they can get away—”
“—get away yourself, AyeAyeAye!”
“Shut up! Get away persuading the UnLondoners that Unbrell and Smog-enstein are enemies.”
“They are enemies! Hasn’t Brollwah clocked that yet? He’s nothing with his poxy shields. Smogzilla don’t need him.”
“And he thinks it was all his idea! Silly hombre!”
“Its Smokeliness has other plans.”
“Not that the Brollington Prime realizes it. He did well to get the Propheseers on his side, though.”
“Yes. I seen them here.”
“Pay attention! They think Unstibulus is one of them, Ivv!”
“Don’t know he’s…puppet.”
The voices snickered.
“My, they’re going to be unhappy…”
“The Concern?”
“Propheseers! And the Concern.”
“How’d it get so strong so fast? I remember when the Smogtopus was just a wee little puff of stink. Now it’s all over the place in bits and bigger than ever…”
“Been feeding, ain’t it?”
“Suckling on chimney teats. They been sending down gunk-smoke from that other place.”
“The weird version of UnLondon? Lodno, ain’t it?”
“Something like that, Vee-Aye. Anyway, they been feeding Smogli. On the quiet.”
“Where is unbrella man anyway?”
“Things are going wrong, ain’t they? Trouble all over.”
“Hence no one here for supper?”
“Yes, what is all this for?”
“What, the spread? Broll meant it for a meeting with the Concern, tonight. Plans over repast.”
“Not happening.”
“No, things a smidge too chaotic for them to get here.”
“People are up and arguing early! He’s off like a bat-squid here and there, trying to stop trouble. There’s fighting! People not doing as told and clearing off when Smogus comes on!”
“Shouldn’t we be out, scary as bugbears, then? To frit them?”
“No need to frantic. Smogosaurus ain’t concerned. Preparing still.”
“I don’t think it’s caring if Unbrell’s having a bad night.”
“Don’t care at all.”
There was unpleasant tittering.
“They’re just nasty,” whispered Deeba. “How are we going to get past? Can we face them?”
“Absolutely not,” hissed Lectern. “They’re the Hex. Most powerful magickers in UnLondon. Each of them was strong originally. Two were Propheseers, a long time ago. But since they joined into one…No we can’t face them.”
There was a pause.
“So what do we do?” said Deeba.
“You know a funny thing?” whispered Obaday, his ear to the door. The utterlings mimicked him: locust, little man, and him, the three of them pressed up close.
“Maybe I could try to lure them out here one by one,” said Jones.
“There are six, right?” said Obaday.
“That’s crazy, Jones,” said Deeba. “They’d never buy it. We have to try to find another way round.”
“Well,” said Obaday, “I’ve been listening carefully, and I can only count five voices in there.”
One by one, Deeba and her companions stopped speaking, and turned to Obaday.
Whistling jauntily and doing up his fly, a man sauntered around the corner towards them. He was very tall and fleshy, and he squinted behind dark glasses. He wore a long pointed hat.
When he saw them, he froze. They froze too.
“She’s here!” the man bellowed. “She’s here!”
There was a commotion within. The door was pulled open, sending Obaday sprawling and the companions tumbling inside.
They were in a hall, in the center of which was a big table covered in food. Meats and cheese and fruit were piled in pyramids.
In one corner stairs led up. Deeba saw l
ayers of smoke drifting from them, thankfully too dispersed to pay attention. The room was full of junk: suits of armor, old globes, game pieces, oily engines, and all manner of other moil.
The man from the corridor ran in behind them and slammed the door. Deeba and her companions faced the Hex.
There were three men and three women, all freakishly similar to each other. They wore identical jackets and trousers and conical hats. Each hat had different letters neatly stitched into it. The man who’d followed them in had i. The others had iv, ii, v, vi, and iii.
“Quick!” shouted the book. “Before they cast a spell!”
“Get her!” shouted the man wearing i. “It’s the girl.”
“You heard Aye,” said a woman who wore iv.
Jones reached for his club. Before he had a chance to move, the Hex pointed at Deeba with a simultaneous motion. They all spoke a word at the same instant.
“Alive!”
“Come!”
“Girl!”
“That!”
“And!”
“Get!”
A crackle of light burst from each of their forefingers, flew together, and became one. It zipped through the air, whining.
Obaday appeared in front of Deeba. He still held his little mirror, and he swung it like a racket. He intercepted the humming light and belted it out of the air, as if returning a serve. It slammed with a phutt! into the table.
“How’d you move so fast?” gaped Jones.
The couturier looked rather amazed himself.
“But…I don’t think it was going to hit her,” said Lectern.
“They were aiming at that armor,” said the book. “That was an ordersquito.”
The companions looked at the armor, then at each other. Then at Obaday’s mirror, and finally at the end of the table, where the little spell had been deflected.
On the table, one of the huge piles of fruit rumbled, spilled, tumbled into a new configuration, and stood up.
86
The Unintended Attacker
The fruit-thing rose, and unfolded.
It was taller than Jones. Deeba saw pears and peaches, apples and grapefruit all moving together like muscles. It stretched out arms at the end of which were bunches of bananas splayed into open hands. Its head was a watermelon, with bulging kiwi-fruit eyes.
Un Lun Dun Page 32