by Tim Lebbon
“No police,” Fat Frederick said. “We’ve got a body in our boot, girl. I’m holding the gun that killed him.”
“No police, babe,” Vince agreed. “Mary Rock’s powerful. So much more powerful than Meloy.”
“Yeah, thanks Vince.”
“Just the truth, boss. I only saw a shadow of what she can do, and it scared the crap out of me. She has reach. Call the police, she finds out, and Lucy will disappear.”
Angela slumped back in her seat, more lost than ever before.
“Then what can we do?” she asked.
“We help those things,” Fat Frederick said, his voice growing dreamy again. “And they help us.”
“Lilou, maybe,” Vince said. “But that other thing… the one she called Mallian…”
“I don’t think helping us is on his radar,” Angela said.
“We’ll see,” Fat Frederick said, pulling out his phone. “Now a bit of quiet. I’ve got some stuff to arrange.”
“What stuff?” Angela asked.
“Doctor for Vince. Find Cliff. Resting place for Billy.”
Vince and Angela leaned together, their warmth and pain merging. Angela closed her eyes and wished herself back home.
25
Dean sat on the bench. It wasn’t his own special bench like some people had, because he preferred to move around different parks. He didn’t want to become comfortable in these places. He had no wish to encourage routine, because he believed that might trap his mind in a closed loop.
He needed to let his thoughts wander free and fly high.
But now… now, his world had changed. Everything he had dreamed of for so long had happened. And it was terrible.
He shivered, even though the early evening was warm and kind, with no breeze and the scents of roasting nuts and coffee drifting from a pavilion to his left. Without his case on wheels, his history, he felt naked and incomplete. But if that contained his past, his future might rest with the camera in his lap.
The past was over two decades of searching. It began with ridicule from fellow scientists when he’d started talking to them about the creatures he believed still existed. He’d even shown them scraps of evidence he had acquired—a tooth, some pelt, footprints cast in plaster. Their mockery had been harsh. Combined with the breakdown of his marriage, his growing obsession had been easily labeled a madness. In truth, through those turbulent months it was the only thing that kept him sane.
He became the “crypto-man,” the nutjob his former colleagues talked about at parties and crossed the street to avoid. His fall from grace begun, he quickly slipped out of society, parting ways with normality and finding himself surfing the undercurrents of London. He started to learn about the real city—the true streets beside those lined with chain stores and restaurants; the rivers that flowed beneath, both known and unknown; the byways and waterways that worked as its nerves and arteries.
Never quite a bum, still he spent so much of his time on the streets that he was considered one. This suited his needs, as anyone in need of help, money, or food became invisible.
In a way, he was trying to lose himself just as much as the creatures he sought.
Now he had found them.
Dean looked around the park at the metropolis he had always called home. He could see the tall buildings and hear traffic, but he felt disassociated from it all.
They know nothing, he thought. They have no idea what lives among them.
And what did? He didn’t know. He had yet to rewatch the footage. Since fleeing those tunnels, escaping back through the old pool building the same way he had entered, he had grasped the camera in his right hand, clutching it like a talisman. Nevertheless, the prospect of watching that footage again terrified him.
You see me, the giant had said, its voice filled with glee. As if seeing him, her, it, did not matter. As if the proof contained in the camera meant nothing.
“Maybe they’ll come to kill me,” he whispered. Pigeons pecking the ground around his feet looked up, heads jerking. They acted almost as if he wasn’t there.
“You look cold,” a voice said, and Dean closed his eyes. He supposed he had loved her for a while. Perhaps because he could not help but love her. He had long suspected that she was something other than human.
“Not cold,” he said. “Petrified.”
“Can I sit?”
“Could I stop you?”
Lilou sat on the bench, close to him but not quite touching. He glanced at her, heart tripping at her perfect profile.
“You’ve beguiled me for years,” he said. “I’ve been a toy to you. You’ve played me just as you needed to, giving a little but never too much.”
“No, Dean,” she said.
“Really?”
“Well… maybe just a little, but all for a good cause.”
“What cause is that?”
“Self-preservation.” She looked right at him when she said that, and he saw something that might have been fear in her eyes. That, or vulnerability. Either one was strange, coming from her.
“I saw it all,” he said. “I know for sure, now, and it’s not as wonderful as I’ve always hoped.”
“It can be… sometimes,” she said. “It once was, a very long time ago, but these are changing times. Danger stalks us.”
“That thing I saw…” he said.
“A friend of mine.”
“Who? What?”
Lilou sighed. She stretched out her legs and crossed her ankles, relaxing back into the bench. She pressed a hand between her breasts and groaned, face twisting in pain.
“Lilou?” Dean asked.
“I have to ask you to destroy that,” she said, ignoring his concern and nodding at the camera in his lap.
He stared down at it. The metal and plastic were warm from his grip, the screen misted with condensation from his sweat. It held the memory of the thing he had seen. A giant, much larger than any man, and possessed of a dreadful presence.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Dean, if the Kin are exposed we’ll be hunted down. There are those who seek to kill us now. Including, sometimes, our own kind, but more often a human or humans who see us as… fair game. They will be relentless.”
“I’ve never understood who would want to do such a thing.”
“Mary Rock’s one, and I think you know of her. To her, relics of the dead are simply currency for the wet remains of the living. But if we were exposed, made public, the pressure would grow. It would become intense. People like her would call a hunting season on us. Scientists would pursue us, security services, anyone. Everyone. There’s no way any of us could survive. Would you want that on your head?”
“No,” he said. “No.” She sounded sad, tired. Sometimes when he’d met Lilou he’d felt hypnotised by her, entranced by her beauty and aura, and he’d guessed that she had some means to produce that effect. He did not feel that now. She was speaking honestly with him, stripped of everything but truth and reason. He wasn’t being steered or coerced. They were together on this bench as equals.
“I’m asking you as a friend,” she said. Whether or not a threat might come next, Dean didn’t wait to find out.
“Simply knowing is enough,” he said. “I always hoped it would be.” He turned on the camera and went through the deletion process so that Lilou could see. When it prompted him, ARE YOU SURE? he did not even hesitate.
ALL IMAGES DELETED.
He sighed, but felt as if a weight had been lifted. The choice of whether to view that haunting footage again was no longer available to him.
“Thank you, Dean,” Lilou said.
“You’re going to leave me now.”
“Yes. Things are afoot, and I’m needed elsewhere. These are dangerous times.”
“So you said.” He looked at her. “Will I see you again?” Such a question sounded strange, directed by an old man to an attractive younger woman, but Lilou only leaned across toward him, smiling. She planted a soft kiss on his cheek. I mi
ght never wash again, he thought, chuckling. It was like being a teenager.
“Some of the Kin don’t like humans, but I do, and I like having a human friend. So I’m sure we’ll see each other, from time to time. You probably know more about us than any human alive.”
“Should that worry me?”
Lilou stood. “Not at all. That’s not the way we are.” She smiled. “Live your life, Dean. You know you were right, even if others never will. You were always right. Make that enough.”
She turned and walked away. Dean watched her crossing the park, visible for five or six minutes, until she was completely out of sight, swallowed by the shadows beneath distant trees.
“Live my life,” he muttered. “Right. What’s left of it.”
Human existence continued around him, ignorant of the truth.
* * *
It was growing dark by the time they reached The Slaughterhouse. Ming parked around the back of the building and they entered through a rear door, descending two narrow staircases into the basement club. Angela helped Vince walk. He was almost unconscious on his feet, stumbling and barely coherent. Some of his wounds had opened again, and she smelled the rich tang of fresh blood.
Cliff was there. He was sitting in Fat Frederick’s office, slouched on the end of the sofa and nursing a half-empty bottle of vodka. It looked as if he’d been crying. Reputation was everything to people like this, Angela knew. The man was broken.
Meloy showed them along the corridor to an adjoining room. It was a small messy office, but it had a sofa and was warm and private.
“Doc will be here soon,” he said.
“You okay?” Angela asked, surprised that she meant it.
“Head hurts. I hear ringing. I think he might have fractured my skull.” He pointed down at Vince where he’d collapsed onto the sofa and was snoring softly. “Look after him. Good guy.”
“Yeah, I know,” Angela said, “but I can’t stay here for long. I have to find Lilou, get their help, then we’ve got to rescue Lucy.”
“Phone.” He held out his hand.
“No way.”
Fat Frederick sighed and lowered his hand. “You’ll call the law. Or a friend. Or your mom and pop in the land of the free and home of the brave. Any mention of what happened will bring attention down on us, and that can’t happen.”
“Because of your ‘legitimate’ enterprises?” she asked.
“No. Because of my collection, and what else we’ve discovered. It’s bad enough Mary Rock being after them, for fuck knows what. What if everyone knew about them?”
Neither of them had to say it, though. The implications were clear enough.
“They must have been hiding for…” he continued, frowning into the distance.
“Forever,” Angela said.
“Mary Rock,” Vince whispered. He shifted on the sofa, gasping as different pains kicked in. “She’s an evil bitch, boss. She cuts them up. Kills them. Medicines, body parts, she makes a fortune. I even heard whispers she holds dining parties.”
“Dining?” Fat Frederick echoed.
“Daley told me about it,” Vince said. “That guy was big as a mountain, but as thick as shit. He never said anything directly, but he hinted that she had influential people around for dinner parties. Local politicians, businessmen, law, couple of military guys, Brits and foreigners. Intelligence agencies. Corporate fat cats. He said she feeds them the good stuff. I can only imagine that means…” He shrugged, then flinched at the pain.
“Them,” Fat Frederick said, finishing his sentence. “She catches and kills them to feed them to rich fucks.”
“Shit,” Angela said as it all clicked. “When I was there they were preparing a dining room for a feast.” She thought of Lilou, Mallian, and that fairy she had seen, supposedly under Mary Rock’s protection. But she wasn’t protecting it. She was looking for ways to kill it.
As she’d walked from that room it had watched her with such sad, pathetic eyes.
“Phone,” Fat Frederick said again.
“No,” Angela said. “I don’t want to hurt them, either. I won’t put them at risk, but I will go to find Lilou again, as soon as I can.”
He paused for a moment, then offered a sad smile. It was a strange moment, a silence that stretched from before to after.
“They’re amazing,” he said.
Angela nodded.
Vince said, “Yeah.”
Fat Frederick pointed toward a closed door in the room’s far wall. “Little bathroom through there, shower, you can get cleaned up. Vince, I’ll get Ming to bring you some clothes.”
“Yours? They’ll be like a tent on me.”
“I’m not so fat anymore.” He turned and closed the door, and Angela and Vince were left alone.
“Come on,” she said. “Clothes off.”
“Babe, I’m too sore. You’ll have to sort yourself out.”
She slapped his arm. He winced and laughed. She still knew him. Even though her knowledge of him had changed so much, she still knew who he was.
The bathroom was barely big enough for the two of them, but she was worried about him slipping or collapsing when the hot water hit his wounds. As she helped him strip, she was shocked by the state of his body. Aside from the cuts and abrasions she had seen, there was heavy bruising around his ribs and chest and across his back. His limbs still shook from the long periods they had been restrained, and he’d lost several fingernails.
But in his eyes she saw that he was back.
The constant flicker of humour she’d fallen in love with was still there, and the cheeky smile. He leaned against the shower wall as she washed him, using a new sponge and shower gel. She was as careful as she could be, but his gasps and hisses matched the steady swirls of dirty, bloodied water shushing down the drain.
Even beyond the pain, his arousal soon became obvious.
“Bloody hell, you can’t be serious?”
“Guess not,” Vince said. “Ballus put me to shame in that department.”
“At least yours isn’t attached to a goat.”
She helped him dry, and heard someone in the office. Making sure he wasn’t about to fall, she wrapped herself in a towel and stepped through the door. It was Ming, and he had brought some clothes. There was also a tray of food and drinks on the desk, and Angela suddenly realised how famished she was.
“He okay?” Ming asked.
She nodded. “How’s Cliff?”
Ming tapped his head. “Whatever happened to you down there, it’s got him scared. And Cliff’s not someone who scares easily.”
He left. Angela returned to the bathroom and helped Vince dress in the fresh clothes, which seemed to fit him quite well. They stepped back into the office, she got him settled on the sofa, but then she found that she couldn’t eat or drink. She paced the room, five steps one way, five the other, clasping her phone.
They were right, she knew, that the police wouldn’t be the answer to this. Yet every instinct urged her to call them.
“There was so much you didn’t tell me,” she said. “Meloy. What you did for him. That apartment in South Kensington.”
“You know about that?”
“I went there. Picked the lock.”
He smiled and looked impressed. “It’s not mine. Meloy lets me use it, that’s all. Sort of a base for…”
“Expeditions.”
“Yeah, sometimes.”
“Where did you go?”
“Here and there.” He shrugged. “Sometimes deep down beneath London. There are places down there you won’t believe. Tunnels, sewers, abandoned tube stations, caverns, catacombs visited by one person every decade or century, and surely some still never visited at all. Sometimes I just went to places that no one really knows or cares about anymore. London’s a big city with a deep history, and it has its echoes. It’s filled with lost places hidden in plain sight.”
“How come you’re so good at it?”
“That’s always been a part of me. I was
the first kid to find fossils on a fossil hunt at school. I knew where to look when our pet dog went missing a couple of times when I was a teenager. I just had a nose for it, and that never went away. When I found out about the relics ten, twelve years ago, they became a fascination. It went dangerous when I met Fat Frederick. I never meant to drag you into it.”
“Well, that worked out well.” He looked wretched, but she smiled to show she didn’t mean it. Then she glanced at her watch. It was edging toward nine o’clock in the evening, and she didn’t have a fucking clue what to do next.
“Vince, do you know where they are?”
He blinked at her like a rabbit in headlights.
“That’s what he was asking me.”
“And you never told him, but now I’m asking, and you know why.”
He looked away from her, down into his lap. His hands twisted there.
“Vince, Mary Rock’s people have Lucy!” Her voice rose with every word. “Unless we do something they might—”
The phone vibrated in her hand, and she almost dropped it. Lucy’s smiling face appeared on the screen, and Angela hated herself for unwillingly involving her friend in this.
She accepted the call.
“I think I might know,” she said without thinking.
“Where?” Claudette asked.
Angela frowned, thinking quickly. “Not sure, but—”
“You said you might know.”
“What I mean is I might know someone who knows where he is.”
“Who?”
“I…”
Lucy screamed. They’d taken off her gag, allowing her to give full vent to her agony. Whatever they were doing to her hurt a lot.
“You bitch,” Angela hissed.
“Yeah, yeah. Fuck you. So, this person who might know…”
“Give me two hours and I’ll tell you.”
“You’re in no position—”
Angela disconnected, switched the phone to silent and slipped it into her pocket.
Vince stared at her, eyes wide. He nodded slowly.
“So we have two hours,” he said. “Maybe. If they don’t just kill her.”
“They won’t. They want you, not her. She’s just to encourage me to find you.”