Kill Fish Jones

by Caro King

  He squeezed his own eyes shut, pretending to be asleep, when every nerve in his body was alert for any sign of movement from the demon. Even with his ears straining to their utmost, he couldn’t hear it breathe. He could make out Alice’s soft and steady breaths, and his own more rapid lungfuls, but nothing else. No third creature. It probably didn’t need oxygen.

  There was also an absence of warmth. He could feel a weight on the blanket, but so slight it was barely there. The creature didn’t have any real presence and maybe that was just right, because to the rest of the world the demon was something that didn’t exist. Unable to hold in a shudder, Fish prayed that it wouldn’t realise he was awake. If it did, it might attack him.

  Alice moved, her shift in position ruffling the blanket. Her sighing breath filled the air before she settled back into a steady rhythm. She had flung an arm outside the cover and it lay there, the sleeve of her jumper rucked up and the bare skin exposed. Fish wished he could put it back in for her, out of the way. Just in case the thing reached out and touched her.

  Tears pricked his eyes. He opened them and looked, hoping it had gone. It hadn’t, of course. For all he knew, it would sit there all night. Terror crept through him on icy paws. Had it given up on accidents and come to kill him with its bare hands? How on God’s Earth had he ever thought to escape it? There was nowhere that he could go where it would not find him. Nowhere. He had always known that, and yet somewhere in his heart he had foolishly hoped. And how stupid he had been to let Alice stay with him! Perhaps it would kill her too, just because she had dared to help him.

  And when it had done with them, it would wait until Susan had heard the news of his death, until she was distraught and grieving, and then it would kill her too. Visit her in the night perhaps, like …

  He tried to stop the thoughts going round in his head. Pictures of him and Alice lying in their makeshift bed as the sun rose. Unmoving, dead, murdered. Of nice Penny Dunnet stopping by to see if they were all right and finding their bodies all cold and still, with a look on their faces of such unending terror that it would haunt her dreams forever.

  Closing his eyes again, Fish tried to relax his body, wondering if the demon knew that he was awake and was just waiting for him to doze off so that it could kill him while he was dreaming. Time ticked on and though he knew it could only be minutes, it felt as if he had lain there for a lifetime, died a dozen deaths in slow motion. The pillow beneath his cheek was wet with tears and the sheet clammy with sweat. Every so often he looked, and always it was there.

  Once he thought that it moved, shaking its head and twitching its ears as if bothered by something. Then it went still again.

  And then at last he looked and it had gone and he could cry out loud, trying not to wake Alice.

  Crouched at the end of the quilt, Grimshaw knew that the power to end everything lay in his paws. The thought was exciting, but it scared him too, and he hated that he was weak enough to be scared. His head whirled with the yearning to be different, to be an Avatar to reckon with, to be tall and glowing-eyed and … and … just different.

  Why must I be like this? he thought.

  In the bed, the girl stirred, throwing her arm outside the blanket. For a moment Grimshaw had an absurd wish to lean over and pinch the soft flesh. To feel what a human felt like. He ignored it and then was angry with himself for ignoring it. Even now, he felt bound to the stupid Rules that wouldn’t let him have physical contact with humankind.

  Although Grimshaw could see in the dark perfectly well, it didn’t mean that darkness was just like light. It wasn’t at all. Light gave things colour and depth. Dark leeched all the colour away and just gave things a shape that was all shades of black and grey and that was oddly weak, as if it were part of the night and not a thing in its own right at all. He could see the boy and the girl lying there, night-time pooling in the sockets of their eyes and the creases of their skin. He could hear them breathing. The boy dragged air into his lungs like he was suffocating, and Grimshaw wondered if he was having bad dreams. If so, he hoped that he was in them. He would like to be the stuff of nightmares. He sniffed. There was a smell of salt tears in the air too.

  It didn’t make Grimshaw hate him any less. The boy might be brave, but he was also a menace. He and his destiny had brought Grimshaw to this, and when the Mighty Curse rose from its sleeping place and destroyed the world, it would be all the boy’s fault.

  He stared irritably at the pale shape of the girl’s arm lying on the bedcover.

  And Lampwick, useless trickster that he was. Third-rate conjuror with a scraping of magical talent and about as much integrity as a tin sovereign. Grimshaw clenched his fists, shaking his ears angrily. Even alive, the man had not been worth the flesh he stood up in. And if he had made an Avatar that was so powerless it couldn’t even finish off its own Sufferers, then it was down to him if that Avatar had to take desperate measures.

  Grimshaw grinned to himself. It was all clear in his head now. This was the only way that he could win. The Rules, the boy and his destiny, Lampwick, all the other Avatars, they were all driving him one way. Just one way.

  And then Grimshaw felt a single moment of fear. Fear that ripped down his knobbly spine like a frozen claw. Because suddenly he knew that he was actually going to do it. He really was.

  And he was going to do it now.

  Fish lay awake for a while longer, tormented by the fears the demon had set loose in his heart. Then, exhausted, he fell into a sleep troubled by dreams in which a nameless thing chased him relentlessly through shadowy towns and over barren deserts where the only colour was grey and all the seas looked like glass.

  When the first light of dawn crept through the window, he woke up. He lay for a moment, taking stock. Birds were singing and the world on the whole looked pretty normal. Not that it was, of course.

  He rolled over and shook Alice.

  ‘Uh? Wass time?’ She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and looked around blearily. ‘Six o’clock! Fish!’

  Fish was already sitting up, waiting for her to wake up properly. He didn’t have to wait long.

  ‘So what’s up then? Is something up? Don’t tell me that demon thing turned up in the night! Oh CREEPS! And what now? I s’pose you want to go and see this Green bloke as soon as possible? What? Like now? Can I at least have some breakfast?’

  Fish laughed. One of the things he really liked about Alice was the way she always knew what he was thinking.

  She sighed. ‘OK. I s’pose we can just eat on the way, right?’

  It was a good thing that Fish’s foot had improved a lot during the last day, because the walk to Knockton was a long one. As they trekked over the heathery moors they shared a breakfast of biscuits and chocolate washed down by what was left of the lemonade. The clouds had gone and it promised to be another fine day with a clear sky, a warm sun and a breeze smelling of heather and distant hills.

  They went in silence for most of the way, which was normal for Fish, but not so normal for Alice. She was lost in her thoughts and Fish wasn’t surprised. The day before yesterday her life had been normal, or at least as normal as it could be for anyone who knew Fish well. Now it was filled with a menace that she couldn’t see, a threat of violent death, certainly to Fish and possibly to her too. She was far from home – her mother didn’t even know where she was – living in a house with no gas or electricity and relying on the kindness of a stranger for food.

  The town was just rising ahead of them when Alice’s phone rang. Alice heaved a sigh and dug in her pocket.

  ‘Hi.’

  Mumbling from the other end.

  ‘Fine. M’with Fish. Gonna have breakfast.’

  More mumbling.

  ‘I dunno. Might be, might not.’

  Even more mumbling.

  Alice sighed. ‘Yeah, text you.’

  Fish strained his ears but couldn’t make out anything Alice’s mum said.

  ‘What? Oh.’ Alice sounded surprised. ‘You too, Mum, O
K. Bye.’

  She ended the call and gave the phone a puzzled look. ‘She said be careful! That’s not like her.’ Alice was silent for a moment. ‘You don’t think she suspects anything, do you?’

  Fish shrugged.

  ‘Anyway, she’s off to work now, so that’s OK. Look, we’re here.’

  Ahead of them the fields ended in a shallow ditch and then a road. They joined it and went on past a row of cottages and a pub to end up in a street of shops and people that reminded Fish of the town that he had left behind as a burnt-out wreck only a couple of days before. He shuddered and glanced around.

  Alice gave him a sharp glance. ‘Is it there? No? Good thing too! Come on, let’s find the Green bloke!’

  A sign on the other side of the road told them that they were on Main Street. They wandered along until Alice said, ‘Fortune Hill! There it is, eh!’ She changed direction and led the way across the road and up the curve of the road. They didn’t go far before they saw a pair of gates standing open on to a path. On the gates was a sign with one word on it: Seven.

  Silently, Fish and Alice walked through the gates and down the path. There were trees and thickly growing shrubs all around them, and they had to walk a little way before they saw the house. It was a tall building in need of a coat of paint, but the garden around it, up to the trees, was neatly kept and full of flowers.

  At the door, Fish stood for a moment, catching his breath, half not wanting to ring on the bell. He often got feelings about things, and right now he knew that inside this house was something so important that it could mean the difference between life and death. The knowledge terrified him and made his heart pump harder and harder, sending the life spinning frantically around his body as if it were trying to get away. But there was no getting away from fate.

  Everything seemed very clear and sharp. He took a long look around at the world, almost as if it would be his last. It was nine o’clock in the morning and the day was still fresh. Overhead, and far in the distance, the silver dart of an aeroplane crossed the vivid blue sky. The air that washed around them was warm and soft as milk and gently rustled the trees.

  Alice slipped her hand into his. Clutching it tight, Fish dismissed his terrors and stepped forward. It gave him a chill inside to think that he was really going to do this.

  And he was going to do it now.

  30

  IN THE LIBRARY

  There was no constellation reference, so the unknown place had to be in Limbo, which meant that it would only lead Grimshaw to a clue of some sort, not directly to the Mighty Curse, as that was sleeping in Real Space. But it would do.

  Unfortunately, it also meant that Grimshaw would have to face Lampwick, as there was no other way back into Limbo other than through his Architect. But if Lampwick wanted to know what his demon was planning and commanded him to tell, then Grimshaw would be compelled to answer. And once he knew, Lampwick would most likely command Grimshaw to drop the idea and again Grimshaw would be forced to obey. He worried the problem around and around in his head, looking for a way past it, until finally he gave up, turned the dials to zero and hit send. There was nothing he could do but risk it.

  ‘Oh, there you are! I’ve been wondering what you were up to, roaming around like a lost …’

  ‘Can’t stop.’ Grimshaw held up a hand. ‘Busy.’

  ‘I’ll give you busy!’ Lampwick sat up straight with indignation.

  Grimshaw was hurriedly rearranging dials. Ring settings Red Hare and then Mirage. And at the intersection he would find what he was looking for – information on how to turn the Earth into a Burnt Offering! And Fish Jones along with it.

  ‘I Conjure Thee, Stay!’ snarled Lampwick.

  Grimshaw’s finger froze over the send button.

  ‘You can’t stop me!’ he snarled. ‘I’m just getting there!’

  ‘Getting where!’

  ‘I don’t know,’ mumbled Grimshaw, ‘but I had an idea about how to kill Fish Jones and I want to do it.’

  Lampwick settled back on his coffin.

  ‘Hmm, going to entertain me with another balls-up, eh?’

  Seething, Grimshaw held his tongue.

  ‘So, what is today’s fantastic idea?’

  ‘Not telling.’ Grimshaw scrunched his eyes tight, wishing he had thought up another plan, an alternative plan convincing enough to put Lampwick off the trail.

  Lampwick leaned forward, a slow grin tracing its way across his putty-coloured face. ‘I Conjure Thee, Tell.’

  Grimshaw screamed, his face twisting horribly with the effort to disobey. It was no use.

  ‘I’m gonna blow up the World!’ he yelled.

  Lampwick paused for a moment, shocked. Then the grin got larger. It turned into a smirk and then a chuckle and then a laugh. The magician shook with mirth until tears began to trickle from the corners of his eyes. ‘You? You couldn’t blow up a rubber ring!’ More screams of laughter, this time at his own wit, echoed around the crypt.

  Grimshaw glared. Inside, behind the glare, he felt cautiously relieved. He had told Lampwick a shorthand version of the truth, but it had cost him every grain of his strength not to blurt out the whole plan. Happily, Lampwick had accepted it, which was a good thing, because Grimshaw didn’t think he could hold back a second time.

  Lampwick got control. ‘So, how are you planning that, then?’ It was a conversational question, not a command, but it still took Grimshaw biting his tongue hard to stop him answering honestly. Twitches shook him so hard he bounced around like a rubber ball.

  ‘Um … I’m … gonna … OW … do something big … lots of fire and … death … like the biggest bomb ever only … OW … not a bomb …’

  ‘What are you blethering about? Do you mean one of these modern nookiller things?’ sneered Lampwick. ‘I have heard of them, you know. And do keep still – you’re making me dizzy.’

  Grimshaw blinked. ‘Nuclear,’ he said sniffily. ‘I think you’ll find it’s pronounced NEW-CLE-AR.’ The twitches subsided a little.

  Lampwick eyed his Avatar thoughtfully. ‘Hmm. Interesting. Which power station are you going to use? And how do you intend to get the boy there? No!’ He held up a hand. ‘Don’t tell me. Either it will be an entertaining flop or it will work. And if it works it will be big, I can see that. Think of the Innocent Bystanders you could get with that one! It might even redeem you for the lost chronometer fiasco. A bit.’

  Grimshaw stared at Lampwick sullenly, but inside he was laughing. He didn’t know what fiasco meant, but frankly he didn’t give a fig. He had got away with lying to his Architect.

  ‘Personally I’m betting on the flop outcome,’ went on Lampwick, his usual sneer curling the corner of his mouth. He waved a hand dismissively. ‘Go on then, do your worst.’

  Without another word, Grimshaw went.

  Earth rings reference Red Hare and Mirage turned out to be a tall house at the end of a long drive. There was a stretch of empty ground that might have trees in it in Real Space, and then flower beds closer to the house. Even though there were no flowers in them in the Limbo version, Grimshaw could tell that they would be flower beds in Real Space because the sections of bare earth were neatly outlined with paving stones.

  After the last update there had been a brief shower of plane parts, forcing Grimshaw to take cover in a nearby shed. Fortunately, most of the chunks had landed some metres away, and the only thing he had to worry about was getting round the portion of wing dumped in the middle of the drive.

  Deciding that the clue must be somewhere inside the building, Grimshaw headed through the door and down a long hallway that would probably be painted a pleasant green in Real Space, but was a kind of sicky grey in Limbo. It led to a living room, a study, a kitchen and a dining room. And one other room, the one next to the living room.

  Grimshaw blinked. It had to be a library – one full of old and powerful books too. Nothing in Limbo gave off that air of pulsating power like a library of old books. He sighed. Typical. The clue
would be in there; it had to be.

  Pushing open the door gingerly, Grimshaw peered in. The library was seething. Everywhere he looked, the half-lives contained in the pages were fighting to get out. He could feel the barely controlled power struggling beneath their dull surfaces, begging somebody to open them. Carefully, he edged around the door, leaving it open, then inched into the room, hoping the books wouldn’t notice he was there. This side of the door, the air was thick with unheard sound and unseen life and it made his ears pop.

  Because fiction was a creation of humankind, stories written in Real Space didn’t translate well to Limbo. Or maybe it was that they translated a little too well! They took on an extra substance, becoming almost as real as their authors. Grimshaw had investigated plenty of fiction books in the Lock-Out Club in Limbo and knew how it went. They snagged the reader, dragged him in and went to work on him like a wraparound cinematic nightmare with a few stiff gins thrown in for good measure. Unlike Real Space TV adaptations and so on, Limbo books were never well balanced. They scooted through some parts of the story and exaggerated others, threw in a mix of ghostly background characters and larger-than-life personalities, changed viewpoint and setting at the drop of a hat and were coloured by the author’s feelings at the time. It was like a vast roller-coaster ride with 3D pictures and no sick bag, and it usually left Grimshaw feeling woozy and gasping for breath. But sometimes it was fantastically wonderful too. It all depended on the book.

  Non-fiction wasn’t much better. All the knowledge and effort and desire to learn created a kind of hotbed of information just dying to shoehorn its way into the reader’s head, often resulting in severe overload and (where encyclopaedias were concerned) brain explosion.

  What’s more, it was vital to go in concentrating on one book only. In a Limbo library, if you got dragged in unprepared, the books would take over, passing you from one to the next. It could be weeks before they let you out again – usually when you were comatose or brain damaged and so not paying proper attention.