The doctor commented, out of my sight, “We’ve got the very latest machine here. Very expensive it was, too.” That machine was humming loudly now. It sounded like malignant things whirring around with electric glee.
“But why … why do you want my soul?”
Before either the doctor or the nurse could answer, Father William, from the far corner of the room, piped up: “It’s the best part of you. Source of almost limitless power, Mrs Black. A magician with a decanted soul can work the most powerful magic there is, for a while. It’s a profound sensation, reaching into the heart of so much power, and bending it to your will. A humbling feeling. As if God Himself is at your beck and call.”
It was odd. For a man who was telling me about the marvels of great power, he sounded sick and weak as he said it. I was reminded, for a moment, of stories I had heard of people who had succumbed to opium and cocaine, and who had given it up. They spoke of the drug the same way, with a kind of bitter longing.
“Well,” I said, feeling strange in my mind, as if the rational part of me were trying to flee my head. “You’re not having my soul, I can tell you that right now!” I noticed I sounded eerily like my mother, saying this.
“Mrs Black,” the doctor said, leaning in so I could see her. Her perfume was delicate; her green eyes were kind. “You have no choice in the matter. I mean, this is why you were sent to us. This is your purpose.”
“Purpose? I beg your pardon? I came here to find His Holiness over there. There was this rather singular man, Mr Brown, who offered me a choice, that — ”
“Yes, Mrs Black,” the doctor said. “Mr Brown is one of ours. He sent you here.”
Father William added, even as a cold numb horror spread through my body, “You are a creative soul, my dear lady. Your … imagination enhances your soul’s power. Whoever is granted access to all that raw energy … ” He made a wet hissing sound that I realised, after a moment, was his idea of whistling with awe.
I started struggling. I’d struggled before, but now I did not care if I broke or tore things, and I did not mean the restraining straps.
The nurse came over and patted my hand. “Now now, Mrs Black. If you struggle like this, I’ll have no choice but to sedate you.” She smiled an airy little smile that looked so reassuring and so innocent.
My mind revolted. I screamed. I fought the restraints. As I convulsed, as I felt straps cut through my skin and my muscles wrenched and tore, I could also hear the doctor saying, “I think we might need a bit of an injection for the patient, Sister.”
The doctor managed to attach that cold metal headset over my temples, despite my frantic efforts to throw it off. I could feel and smell the sticky substance on the contacts. “You are not taking my soul! You are not taking it!”
The nurse appeared, bearing a large glass syringe, needle attached, full of something that looked like viscous water. She flicked the side of the barrel to remove bubbles. “Now now, Mrs Black. I’m afraid you’re only doing this to yourself. You do realise that, don’t you?”
Still I struggled; still I fought. I knew I had torn muscles, ripped flesh; everything burned with pain; there was blood everywhere, horribly lubricating my struggles.
Then a strange, harsh chattering sound erupted from somewhere outside. It came in repeated bursts, with irregular popping sounds, like fireworks going off somewhere. Under the chattering sound, I heard people screaming and running. I was so busy trying to fight these monsters that for a moment I did not comprehend what I was hearing. The doctor swore, “They’re here!” and then to the nurse, “Get on with it!”
The nurse, armed with her syringe full of what could have been horse tranquiliser, turned on the doctor, jammed the needle into the doctor’s backside, and drove the plunger home with the heel of her hand.
The doctor, shocked out of her wits, stared at the nurse. “But … ” she said, and fell, hitting her head. She hit the floor hard, her eyes open and staring in confusion, and stayed there. Outside, it sounded like the assault was coming closer.
Father William struggled up, coughing. I still could not see him. He said, “Sister, I demand an explanation!”
She was too busy cutting my restraints with a scalpel. “Are you all right under all that blood, ma’am?” Her voice and manner were different. She was all business, with the effortless efficiency of a highly trained soldier, I noticed. There was no trace of that airy innocence at all.
My head and limbs free, circulation restored, fresh pain flooded through me. I just stared at her as she helped me sit up.
“Sister!”
The door burst open. Two men stood there, their black machine-guns smoking, charcoal-grey berets perched over one side of their heads, looking like the commandos of the occult who had captured me and killed Julia. Their hollow eye-sockets managed to look full of dark purpose. I still could not speak. There was too much noise. So much screaming. The War had come to me after all. One of the soldiers said, “Everything under control in here?”
“Just about. Be right with you,” the nurse said.
“Righto,” he said, and they left.
I managed, “What in God’s name …?” I rubbed at my wrists. The blood was shocking to see.
Father William approached, grabbing the nurse. He held her by the shoulders. I did not know how the nurse could stand it, but she did. She let him grab her, and she stood there, staring up into the depths of his hood, not intimidated or frightened at all. “Father William Dennis,” she said, still with that icy, competent tone, “you are hereby under arrest, according to the terms specified in Article Four, Section Twelve of the Balance of Universal Powers Treaty of 1904.” She produced a small, flat pistol from a pocket.
He muttered and blustered, pushing her away. “You’re threatening me — with that?”
“Please be aware, sir, that everything you have so far said to Mrs Black has been taken down, and will be used against you at trial. You are entitled to legal counsel. If you cannot afford adequate counsel, counsel will be provided at nominal cost. Do you understand these rights?”
He stood there, staring, first at the nurse, then down at me. So, I thought, all I had to do was talk to him, and let him hang himself. I couldn’t help imagining him talking to my father, absolving him of his own sins. At length, Father William started laughing, in so far as it was possible for him to laugh, then coughed so hard he needed to lean against my bed. Once he recovered his monstrous composure, he smiled at the nurse, nodded to me, then turned and took a step towards the door.
“Take one more step,” the nurse said, “and I will shoot you.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” he gurgled, and shuffled on.
She fired. It was so loud I could only barely hear it. Smoke filled the room.
He had stopped cold, hands raised.
“Next time,” she said, “I won’t shoot the floor.”
“I don’t … I don’t understand!”
“I’ll second that,” I said.
Two different soldiers appeared at the door, one of them with a bloodied bandage wrapped around his upper arm. “Heard a bit of a bang, love. Everything all right?”
The nurse smiled, and pushed Father William’s shambling form at them. They flinched at his odour. “Cuff him. I’ve given him his rights and charges.”
“Section Twelve?”
“At the very least,” she said. “Give me a while. I might think of more.”
The soldiers cuffed Father William’s wrists. I could not look. They led him away.
She turned to me. “I must apologise for all of that.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“All the … carry-on outside. The guns. All of that.”
“That’s quite all right. Rather that than have my soul sucked out of me, frankly.”
She nodded ruefully. “That was never going to happen, ma’am. I had a contingency plan, in the event the assault was late.”
“You might have let me know.”
“I needed
Father William and the doctor to believe they were safe. I can only imagine how … ” She trailed off.
“Indeed. You can only imagine.”
I noticed I could no longer hear guns and screams. I supposed the winning troops were mopping up out there. “Where are we, then? What is this …?” I looked around the room.
“Order of Pentacles Outpost Six, Alpha Zone.”
“No, I mean, where are we?”
“Ah,” she said. “Still jolly old Thanatos. Out in what you might perceive as the countryside.”
“Right. So, about Mr Brown. Was that …?”
“He works with us. Rather a complicated relationship. You were never in danger. We just needed to get Father William and his nasty mates to make a fatal mistake, come out of hiding, so we could locate this outpost. You have our gratitude. And, on a personal note, Mrs Black, I am sorry about your father, your husband, and of course your Aunt Julia. For what it’s worth, there are worlds beyond this one. Millions of worlds.”
I stared. “I don’t quite follow … ”
“You write scientific romances. You dream of travelling to other stars, and other worlds.”
“It’s crossed my mind.” I was thinking that I must have gone mad.
“Here, when we talk about ‘the deadworld,’ we do not only speak of one planet, as such. It would more accurately be called ‘the universe of the dead’. Because, if you think about it, about all the people throughout history who have died … ”
“They could not all be squeezed into one world,” I said, starting to see.
“They’ve spread out. They’ve gone to the stars. At a certain point in their time here, they learn to fly like birds through space.”
“You’re saying Julia is out there, somewhere?”
“Somewhere, ma’am.”
I sat and said nothing for a long while, as the nurse cleaned my wounded wrists and ankles, removing the blood, bandaging them up. It was a lot to absorb at once.
“Thank you. That’s … that helps.” I thought of Julia out there, flying across the universe. “Will I see her again, do you think?”
“Never say never,” she said.
“And what about me? Father William said my time was up, that I was stuck here.”
The nurse checked her fob watch. “Um, no, actually. You still have three hours, give or take.”
“Three hours!”
“Until extraction.”
“You make me sound like a troublesome tooth.”
She smiled sadly. “At least you get to go back.”
“There’s one thing,” I said, nervous now.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“My husband, Antony Black. Is he here somewhere? Do you know?”
“Not me, no, sorry. Never heard of him, in any case.”
“It’s just, I need to know.” I hated how weak my voice sounded as I said that.
“He’s dead, he’s one of us?”
“I don’t know. That’s the trouble.”
“Ask at the Great Library, then. If he’s here, he’s there, if you … ”
“I take your meaning. Thank you. That’s most helpful.”
One of the commandos came back into the room, tall and strapping. He had a smell of battle about him. He asked after me. I said I would be fine. “Any chance of a lift back home?” I said.
39
I woke in Ward B of Rockingham Hospital. Only a few weak lights were on. A nursing sister sat at the head of the ward, monitoring the room. All was peaceful, but for some gentle snores from other patients. Rutherford was there, looking tired, reading a book, sitting quietly next to the bed, eating grapes from a brown paper bag. It was a wet night outside. I had never been so happy to hear rain.
I went to speak, but my voice was dry. I coughed and gasped.
Rutherford looked up, stunned, blinking. “Oh …! Ah … ”
He allowed me a brief smile, before striding off to get the nurse.
They kept me there for several long weeks, recovering. My voice returned. Rutherford visited every day; sometimes he brought Vicky or Sally or even Murray. Ryan, they said, was much too busy cleaning up his latest catastrophic accident. “We thought you were dead,” Vicky said one day. “The police told us. It was in the paper.”
Rutherford said, “I have of course saved all of the clippings about your death and obituary.”
“You are too kind,” I said.
He nodded minutely, and went on. “I should also mention that we organised a memorial service in your honour. There was no — ” He paused here to catch his breath and resumed. “There was no body to bury, but we managed as best we could, under the circumstances.”
I had not considered this. “A memorial service…”
“It was a very tasteful service. In Rockingham.”
“Oh God. Did Gordon attend?”
“I’m afraid not, ma’am. He did send a thoughtful card to the house.”
“I see. I — ”
“Yes, ma’am. It was a shame to see the poor attendance, it must be said.”
I thought about this. Who would come to the funeral of a known murderer — and the murderer of a priest, at that? I did not know if I would attend such a funeral. I also thought of my reclusive ways. Perhaps I could essay a few changes to my routines.
We sat in silence for a long moment. Rutherford looked embarrassed. He offered to fetch me a cup of tea. I said, “Do any of you know how I came to be here?”
“Two days after you … er, well, ‘died’, ma’am … ” Vicky opened.
Sally finished, “We got a telephone call from someone. Didn’t leave his name. He just said you were here, and you were going to be all right, and that.”
“He didn’t leave his name? No details at all?”
“Nothing.” Vicky nodded at that.
Rutherford said, “I motored up here, and, as promised, here you were.”
“No-one told you how I came to be here? None of the doctors, or anyone like that?”
“No-one would tell me anything at all, ma’am. Believe me, I did endeavour to find out.”
“How long was I … out?”
“You were unconscious for nine days.”
I thought. Nine days unconscious, plus two days at that mysterious warehouse Mr Brown had described, plus several weeks stuck here eating awful food and all the grapes a person could manage, would make today …
Sometime in early August?
“My deadline!”
Rutherford said, “I sent a telegram to your publishers, ma’am. They were greatly saddened to learn of your death. They sent a beautiful wreath for your memorial…” He looked as uncomfortable discussing it as I felt. He added, “I have not yet advised them of your revival, so to speak.”
On another occasion, Rutherford, by himself, appeared one evening, bearing the latest edition of the Pelican River Record. “I thought you might find this of interest, ma’am,” he said, handing me the thin paper. He remained standing in the familiar at-ease position.
“No grapes tonight, Rutherford?”
“I believed you would prefer to see the newspaper, if I may be so bold.”
I unfolded it and saw the headline:
WAR DESERTER CONVICTED IN PRIEST SLAYING
Startled, I read the first few paragraphs. Cox wrote that the homicide case against me, which had looked so strong, had been abandoned. The crucial fingerprint evidence, it appeared, proved “unreliable under expert scrutiny”. In fact, the article went on, the police had “stumbled” on a fresh lead in the “baffling case” when a “deranged former soldier, Mr Alfred Kinney”, of no fixed address, was brought in for questioning on an unrelated matter. It had subsequently developed that Mr Kinney’s fingerprints were a much closer match for those found on Father William’s letter-opener and in his study. Mr Kinney, it further developed, was a deserter from military service who had been on the run in the backblocks of the countryside for quite some time. His attack on Father William was, apparently, “a desperat
e robbery attempt gone horribly wrong”. Cox went on to lay out the police case, describing how, that fateful night, Mr Kinney had broken into Father William’s cottage looking for food, money, or anything of value, and Father William had discovered the “mad-eyed killer” in his study. The bitter irony, of course, was that Father William had no money.
The article concluded with a formal apology, in large print, addressed to “the memory of Mrs Ruth Elizabeth Black, the noted local author, whose fine reputation has been unjustly tarnished by this sordid affair”.
I laughed, reading this last part. I laughed a great deal. “Local author! Local!” When Rutherford exhibited signs of concern, I said to him, “When we get back home, Rutherford, we’re inviting Bluey Cox here to dinner. He’s a scholar and a gentleman!”
Life eased back to something resembling normal, once I came home. I was still trying to sort through everything I had learned, and everything I was still feeling. It helped that I had taken, every Friday afternoon when I visited the Commercial Hotel, to “shouting the bar”, as they say here. People came up to me saying things like, “I never knew you was such a top bloody sort!” A lady knows she has arrived when the locals say such things about her.
It helped, too, when I contacted my publishers in London to advise them that reports of my death were, as a wise man once said, premature. Apparently my demise released me from the contract for Too Many Worlds, and their lawyers said that my “return to life” could not be used in order to make me comply with the contract’s terms. So I was off the hook. I was glad. I had long decided that that book was more trouble than it was worth, and I happily abandoned it, despite the great amount of time and work I had invested in it. I had also learned over the years that failed books could be stripped for parts, so it was not a complete loss. In any case, I told my editor, I had a better idea for a book that I thought they might like.
40
Towards the end of winter, one afternoon, I sat wrapped in heavy blankets, gloves and a thick woollen cap out on the seaweed-strewn beach of Hagan’s Head. Rain seemed likely. Cold south-westerlies blasted sea-spray against my face. Seagulls and terns, adults and juveniles alike, huddled nearby on the sand, their spindly legs folded beneath them, all of them angled into the wind. The roaring grey sea churned and roiled.
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