by Alexis Hall
“Thank you, Miss Kane.”
“Guess we’re done here. Grab your stuff, and I’ll show the flat.”
“I do not have any ‘stuff,’ Miss Kane.”
“Can you stop calling me Miss Kane all the time?” I asked. “It’s kind of weird.”
“I apologise.”
I took my quirky new sidekick home with me. She wasn’t kidding about not having any stuff. I even had to pay for her Oyster card. From what I’d heard about her creator, I was mildly surprised she wasn’t naked. She insisted on standing all the way home. She didn’t even sway with the motion of the Tube. I guess, at the very least, he’d given her a good sense of balance.
I let us into my flat, making a mental note to get the hall light fixed, and gave her the grand tour. Thirty seconds later we were standing awkwardly in the living room.
“So . . . this is the place,” I said. “If you need blankets or a pillow or whatever, there’s an airing cupboard in the hall.”
“Thank you. That will not be necessary. As I said, I have no need to sleep.”
“Yes, but you might want to sit down.”
“Thank you, but I prefer to stand.”
I blinked. “What, always?”
“Yes.”
“Well.” I gave a sweeping gesture. “Stand wherever you feel most comfortable. Do you want me to make you up a corner or a cupboard or something?”
“No. Thank you.”
We awkwarded for another long moment.
“So,” I tried, “where were you before?”
“In a cube of metal in a wrecking yard. This is quite spacious by comparison. After the Multitude rescued me, I stood in a corner of a church, portraying the Virgin Mary.”
I had no response to that whatsoever. “How about a cup of tea?”
To my surprise, she perked up. “That would be lovely.”
“How do you like it?”
“Black and very hot.”
She followed me into the kitchen and watched with a rapt expression as I made the tea.
“Will I be permitted to use these devices?”
“Mi kettle es su kettle.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes, Miss Elise,” I said.
“I feel you are mocking me, Miss Kane.”
“Moi?”
“I notice,” she observed, after studying the layout of the kitchen, “that you have heavy objects stored in an overhead compartment. That seems illogical.”
Everyone has an opinion. They’re my heavy objects, dammit.
“That’s where they live.”
“I apologise. I did not consider their feelings.”
“I’m sure they’ll forgive you.” Then I realised she was serious.
I grabbed two mugs from the pyramid. One of them was mine—which you could tell because it was scavenged from a promotional stand and advertised a recruitment company—and the other was Eve’s—which you could tell because it was black and had a weird message on it about being the only one here with the antidote. I’d never understood that mug. It was nice to know Eve could still make me feel slightly stupid a year after we’d broken up. I poured out two mugs of Tetley and passed one to Elise.
She wrapped her hands around it with a look of genuine pleasure.
“You really like tea, huh?”
“I like the heat.”
“I could have just boiled you some water if you wanted.”
“Ah. That had not occurred to me.” She dipped a finger into the steaming liquid and then took a sip.
“Look,” I said. “I don’t mean to be rude, but are you some kind of robot or something?”
“I am a statue, Miss Kane, carved from stone and animated with stolen fire.”
Eat your heart out, Dr. Frankenstein. “And you don’t need to devour human flesh or anything?”
“No, Miss Kane.”
“Right.” I’d had my fill of weird conversations for one day. “I need to grab a couple of hours’ sleep. I’ll be up at ten. Here, have some cash in case you want to do anything or go anywhere. Consider it an advance. There’s a spare key behind the door and a spare mobile in one of the drawers somewhere.”
“Goodnight, Miss Kane.”
With that, I went to bed at half past seven in the evening. My sleep patterns were so fucked.
I woke to the beeping of my phone and the smell of fresh coffee. Fifty percent win. I zombied out of bed and pulled on some clothes. It was a good thing I remembered I had a guest. I could imagine the conversation now: You appear to be naked, Miss Kane. Is that your customary habit at this hour?
I went into the kitchen where Elise was just pressing the plunger on my cafetière.
“I successfully operated the devices, Miss Kane.”
“Go you.” I sat down in front of a pile of bananas. Elise passed me a cup of coffee, and I nursed it lovingly. “What’s with the bananas?”
“I took the liberty of examining your refrigerator and found it empty except for a jar of pickled cucumbers, half a packet of bacon, and several bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale. Reasoning that you would require something to sustain you on your nighttime journey in the city sewers, I took it upon myself to procure some suitable nourishment.”
“So you bought bananas?”
“Bananas are exceedingly practical, Miss Kane, for they are both portable and high in energy. They are, as they say, good for you.”
I finished my coffee and gamely ate a banana. I do not like bananas. They’re basically mush held together with stringy bits. And Eve once told me they were technically nuts, which blew my mind. Then she told me that peanuts weren’t nuts. And then I dumped her. Though not, admittedly, for a couple of years.
I checked my sewer kit and stuck my knives into the bandolier. Since there was no danger of running into the rozzers where I was going, I took the lot. I tossed Elise the keys, and we went down to the car, where I hopped into the passenger seat.
“Wait a minute,” I said, as Elise got in next to me, “do you actually know how to drive?”
“I am not certain, but it cannot be that difficult.”
“Okay, switching sides now.”
Elise didn’t budge, but sat there running slender fingers over the dashboard and the steering column.
“Come on, get out.” I might have sounded a little bit anxious.
Here lies Kate Kane. Driven into a wall by a statue without a licence. Beloved daughter. Sorely missed.
“A moment, Miss Kane.” She turned the key and my death trap on wheels sprang perkily to life.
I put my head in my hands as she turned on the windscreen wipers and the hazard lights. Then she turned them off, adjusted the mirror, and pulled out.
Huh.
“And you’ve never done this before?”
“I had never operated the coffee-making device before, either.”
“They’re not really the same thing.”
“Not in detail, perhaps, but in essence.”
“Remind me to get you to look at the washing machine.”
“I look forward to it. I like washing machines.”
Okay, that was two things I knew she liked. Hot water and washing machines. It was like we’d known each other our whole lives.
“You like washing machines?” I asked.
“I like the vibrations.”
I took the high road and concentrated on giving Elise directions.
Twenty minutes later, we left the car in an underground lot near Farringdon Station. I bundled my kit and my bandolier under my arm and went off looking for a manhole. Normally when I do this kind of thing, I just try to act like I’m supposed to be there. Generally people don’t question you if you’re wearing a hard hat. This time, however, I had a supermodel following me around. We looked like a small lesbian Village People tribute act.
I found an easy-lift manhole cover just off Farringdon Road. Despite the name, it was not, in fact, easy to lift. I guess the Council wanted to discourage casual sewer tourism. I was ab
out to channel my mother’s power when Elise gracefully bent down and pulled it open.
“If I’m not back by four,” I said, “I’ve probably drowned in poo, and there’s fuck-all you can do about it, so keep the car and have a nice life. And if a crazy vampire chick shows up looking for me, tell her it was fun.”
“As you wish, Miss Kane.”
I climbed down the rusty metal ladder into the darkness. At the bottom, I slung on my bandolier and checked my gear for the last time. From here, there was no turning back. Metaphorically. Not literally. I had every intention of coming right back here, ideally in about an hour’s time, having beaten the bad guy and got the girl.
I was in a narrow entrance gallery, dripping brick walls dimly illuminated by my miner’s light. I always expect the sewers to smell way worse than they do. It wasn’t really bad. Just quite bad. And it would get better when I joined the main tunnel. It’s basically all about shit-to-water ratio.
I made my way down the feeder tunnel, which narrowed gradually until I had to crouch. Balancing myself against slimy walls, I followed the gradient over a series of what, for the sake of my sanity, I decided to call small waterfalls. Finally, I splashed into the sewer proper. This was the real deal: a fifteen-foot oval of hard-fired, nineteenth-century brickwork supported by heavily layered arches sometimes nearly six bricks deep. The Victorians might have been a bunch of mass-murdering, misogynistic fuckheads, but they sure knew how to build a shit pipe.
It was at about that this point that I realised “beyond the River Fleet” wasn’t very helpful. Downstream would take me to an outfall pipe and the Thames, so I headed upstream instead, wading knee-deep through grey, fast-flowing water. I had to stay right in the middle of the river because, even with my special sewer-diving boots, I couldn’t keep a grip on the sloping, slime-covered floor. And even then, I had to pick my way around dodgy-looking clumps of stuff that I knew from experience would belch a load of sewer gas at you if you kicked them.
It was just ducky.
As I went deeper, I began to notice a strange, heavy mist in the air, which told me I was probably going the right way. Or the wrong way, depending on how you looked at it. I passed interceptor sewers, each disgorging yet more sewage into the river.
And then something hit me.
It came from behind and above, nearly sending me face-first into the Fleet. I dropped to one hand and one knee, murky water rising to my chest and spilling down my waders. I’d have been grossed out if I didn’t have bigger problems. The bad guy wrapped a slimy, splay-fingered hand round my throat and I felt tiny mouths burrowing at my skin. Another hand clamped round my elbow and started trying to pull me off balance.
I yanked the steel knife out of my bandolier and slashed back and down as hard as I could. I heard a wet, tearing sound, but the creature just tightened its grip.
This was not the time to worry about the personal and metaphysical consequences of invoking otherworldly magic.
I mustered all my mother’s strength and stood up, throwing the thing backwards. Power and adrenaline surged through me, the world snapping into focus around me.
In the Deepwild, my mother stood laughing, knee-deep in a river red with blood.
I turned. My attacker was back on its feet. It was person-shaped, clad in tattered rags and rusted chainmail. Its skin was pallid and glistening, and its long blond hair was matted with filth and lank with sewer water. Its mouth was a distended circle of hooked teeth surrounding a sharp, probing tongue. Dozens of similar mouths twitched open and closed on the palms and fingers of its outstretched hands. But its grey eyes were shockingly human. And it didn’t look as though it liked me much.
I lunged forwards with my knife a split second before the creature came for me. It reached for my throat again and I severed its hand at the wrist, slamming my free hand into its chest.
It reeled away from me.
I’d say I felt like I was dancing, but I hate dancing, and this was effortless.
It lifted the stump of its arm, gristle and mucus oozing out of the wound and rapidly coagulating into a new hand. Mouths burst open across the surface.
Well, fuck.
We circled each other, looking for weaknesses and openings. Worst-case scenario: I’d stab it with each of my knives in turn until I found one that hurt it. I looked again at its armour. You don’t often meet squidgy, sewer-dwelling, lamprey-mouthed, blood-sucky things wearing chainmail. I could just about make out the remains of a tabard, embroidered with a faint pattern of flowers and a single bleeding heart.
Huh.
I sheathed my steel knife and reached for cold iron.
The creature rushed forwards, grabbing for my knife hand. It latched onto my wrist but I pushed forwards. As I came in, its other hand clamped over my face, rasping tongues scraping at my lips and eyes as teeth hooked into my skin. I forced my way through and drove my dagger into its chest. It recoiled, shrieking and hissing, and tried to flee.
Without even thinking, I caught it by the hair, twisted its head back, spun the knife in my hand and plunged the blade through its pulsating mouth and into whatever was left of its brain.
It slipped twitching into the sewer, and shrivelled away to nothing, leaving me with only a handful of hair, which I dropped and let the Fleet carry away.
Slowly my senses returned to normal, and I almost regretted it. I was breathing heavily, my waders were full of shit, and my face hurt. Great. I put my dagger away and tried to gather my thoughts.
I was pretty sure I’d just found what killed Andrew, and I was pretty sure I knew what I was dealing with. Given where I’d started and how far I’d come, I was probably under Clerkenwell. The smart thing to do was get out of here, talk to Julian, and come back in force.
Uncharacteristically, I did the smart thing.
About a quarter of an hour later, I was pulling myself awkwardly back up the ladder with boots full of water. I rapped on the underside of the manhole, and Elise lifted it up. It felt unbelievably good to see a dreary London night waiting for me on the other side. Sewers really do give you a sense of perspective.
“How was your trip, Miss Kane?”
“There were no fresh towels, and the service was terrible.”
“I sense you are mocking me again.”
I crawled out onto the road and schlooped out of the waders, emptying their contents back into the sewer. The shit-to-water ratio up here was not good. I reeked, and I needed to see Julian quickly, but I needed a shower more.
We went back to the car, threw a rubber sheet over the seats, and rolled down all the windows. In some ways, this was worse than the sewer. Given the choice between wading through shit and sitting in it, I’d pick wading every time. I tried to ring Julian, but, of course, it went straight to voice mail. I was starting to suspect that she saw telephones purely as a means for her to contact other people. Besides, it’s not like she’d be able to a fit a mobile in those trousers.
“You appear to be injured, Miss Kane,” said Elise.
“Bloodsucking poo monster. It’s no biggie.”
We got home. This was the bit I hated most. The aim of the game was to get as much sewage as possible off yourself without getting any of it onto your stuff, and to do it quickly to make sure your house didn’t smell of poo for the next ten months. I took off my socks and overalls and bundled them into the waders, wrapping the whole lot in the plastic sheet I’d just been sitting on. Underneath I was still wet and smelly, but nowhere near as wet and smelly as I had been. Then I squelched inside, put everything in the bath and hosed it down. I moved all that to the sink and got into the shower myself, stripping off layer by layer once the water ran clear.
It took a while, but eventually it turned into the best feeling ever. Not being covered in crap was awesome. I towelled myself off with my nicest, fluffiest towel, eying Julian’s crucifix, which was still lying on the bedside table. Figuring I should give it back to her, I stuck it in my pocket as I dressed. I said good-bye to Elise, w
ho seemed to be taking this completely in her stride, jumped back in my still-very-smelly car, and sped to the Velvet.
Tuesday night was subVersion, their goth, kink, and kinky goth night. Outside, there was a long, excitable queue of people dressed almost entirely in black. Ashriel was standing in the door, shirtless. Gosh, the dude had definition. No wonder all the ladies went for him. Well, that and the sex-death hellpower. He was wearing thick leather bands on each wrist and a dog collar with a dangling lead. I couldn’t help myself. I pulled on it, grinning.
“Are you really yanking the chain of an incubus?”
“Are you really managing a line of horny goths with your shirt off?”
“Touché. Julian’s inside. Usual place.”
They were playing Combichrist’s mid-noughties masterpiece “This Shit Will Fuck You Up,” and the dance floor was heaving with writhing, angry bodies. The air was once again full of sex and sweat and leather, to which I brought the faintest suggestion of raw sewage. I liked to think it was an improvement.
I eased myself through the crowds, tripping over riding crops and trying not to snag my shirt on anyone’s nipple clamps, past the velvet rope, and up the spiral stairs to Julian’s lesbian bonk pit. She’d redecorated. The hangings were still red velvet and the chaise longue was where we’d left it, but there were handy chains dangling from the ceiling, many of them in use. Julian was lounging about as usual, her booted feet resting on the bowed back of a woman who showed every sign of getting off on the arrangement. Julian was sipping languidly from the wrist of another, who also showed every sign of getting off.
“Having fun?” I flopped down beside her.
“Always, sweeting.”
“Is this your thing, then?” I asked.
“You’re my thing.”
“Because I have to tell you, it’s not my thing. I find three-ways stressful, so I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for a—” I started counting. “—six . . . seven . . . eight-some.”
“Don’t worry, sweeting.” She gave me ravishing smile. “This isn’t about me, it’s about them.”
“Well, that’s really community-spirited of you.”