Midnight Lamp

by Gwyneth Jones

  ‘Ready to launch.’

  Ax let the binoculars drop, and set himself with his back to a strip of wall between two windows, his rifle trained on the door. He pulled down his headset screen. Sage jumped up and fired the catapult. The camera flew, a vaned, complex sphere the size of a fat spider: over the roofs, and straight into the belfry. Good shot, Aoxomoxoa. Sage had ducked down again, the control pad on his knees. He applied a touch of motor so the camera dropped, through the hole where the bellrope had left the loft: let it fall, then another touch to make a right angle turn into the body of the church.

  ‘I’m not getting anything on my screen. What can you see?’

  ‘With you direc’ly. Oh, yeah. We found the people.’

  ‘Got it.’

  Ax’s pixelated blur resolved into a view down the church from the west end. Lancet windows foreshortened, dim with evening, naked flames in sconces round the walls. Twenty or thirty people were sitting, facing forwards, on the floor. A mixed group, men women and children: many wearing loose dark robes. Below the sanctuary a smaller group sat at a table set crossways. It was a scene vaguely reminiscent of the Last Supper, restaged for an audience of lesser disciples. He had a glimpse of a railed enclosure off to the left, possibly stairs that might lead down to a crypt. The sanctuary had been stripped out, no Christian altar. There was a coloured frieze, flayed skulls or multicoloured roses, all around the walls. A sheeny grey shape like a sarcophagus on a trestle.

  Shit, not roses. False-coloured brainscans—

  ‘Can you see her? I can’t see her. Are you guiding it?’

  ‘I’m trying. Have you got sound?’

  ‘No… Oh, now I have. Can’t make anything out, though.’

  The flying cam was so light it barely needed motive power to stay in the air, but guidance was delicate and costly. It had originally been media tech, later adapted for military use. At default would pick up the mean angle of gaze, if there was a group of people (or an audience), and track the centre of attention. Ax’s picture broke up, and reformed. He was looking at the high table, focusing on the face of a young man in spectral white make up: long blue-black hair, a white shirt open to the waist to display a black tattoo of a bat-winged creature, silver chains from its snout to nipple rings at the clawed wing tips.

  The Goth looked tense, impatient. He was listening—

  Sound became intelligible. The Goth’s right-hand neighbour was speaking. ‘This was their MO in Yorkshire… They’d take off together an’ rip the shit out of some Islamic position, killing everything that moved. They’re fucking psychos.’

  The speaker was at least two decades older, he had bristle-short brown hair and a crumpled route map of a face.

  ‘I was close to them, for months. I can tell you, it was an education.’

  In the cupola, Sage muttered, ‘Ever seen him before?’

  ‘Not that I recall.’

  ‘Well, my lady,’ The sound became uncannily natural, as the Goth with the bat-wing tattoo raised his voice, half turning in his chair, ‘is this true? Are your boyfriends ruthless killers?’

  ‘I have no idea.’ They forgot to breathe. It was her voice.

  ‘If they are, they never used to bring their work home.’

  ‘They got past the Watcher,’ cried somebody from the floor. ‘In my heart I felt it die! Now we’re all going to waste our sacrifice for nothing!’

  When Fiorinda spoke their view had shifted, it shattered again and focused on the audience, seeking the new centre—

  ‘Shit!’ hissed Ax.

  Back to the high table. A heavy woman to the left of the tattooed Goth was scowling, speaking unintelligibly but in magisterial scorn. She wore brown robes, she had a necklace of animal skulls, knots of feathers, pierced stones.

  ‘No one passes the Watcher, whatever you “felt”. Whoever dared to touch our guardian is hollowed out, he is rotten wood, he will soon fall.’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on it. If I were you, I’d surrender right now. You’re talking about the man who reached the Zen Self, you dorks. I will try to let them know you’re good people deep down, but I warn you I am crap at telepathy.’

  ‘Why the fuck won’t they look at her?’

  ‘I’m trying!’

  The heavy woman rose, sky-clad under the robes. She turned her back to the faithful, raised her arms wide and knelt, facing the sanctuary.

  ‘Lady, you know our cause is just. Join our ceremonies. Approve our worship, bless our sacrifice. Help us to defeat the dupes of Babylon.’

  ‘I’ve considered the worship of the lord and the lady,’ said that voice, the cut crystal vowels of her childhood very distinct. ‘I utterly reject it. If you persist in defining me as a Pagan, Elaine, you’ll have to put me down as a heretic.’

  ‘Got it, but this is eating power. Got about ten seconds—’

  The camera pulled back, disclosing a high backed chair, and the witch-queen enthroned: flanked by the grey tombs of the cognitive scanners, swathed in white, hieratically still and straight, only her face left bare. Her grey eyes were enormous, she was smiling sacrastically, chin up.

  ‘She’s alive,’ breathed Ax.

  They could not see how she was bound to that chair, but she had to be, she had to be a prisoner—

  ‘Why don’t we call on our own magician?’

  Said the voice of the man with the route-map face.

  Brown robed Elaine turned on him. ‘Why? To “save our lives”? You talk up a storm, Moloch, but I sometimes wonder if you’ve grasped why we’re here at all. Let us prepare for worship. The lady will preside.’

  Their view became chaotic, face jostling face, robes falling open from bare bodies, dishes on the table, a child’s hand pushing a little toy car over uneven terracotta tiles. A hubub of voices, a tumble of blurred colour, and black out.

  Ax and Sage shoved back their screens and stared at each other.

  ‘She’s alive! She’s here!’

  Baal, the black dragon, had a consult Moloch, the alleged Islamic Campaign vet, while Elaine led the prayer meeting. Baal was into gun control, he didn’t allow the citizens to carry weapons unless they were on patrol: but they agreed it was time to break out the home defence. Fiorinda could hear them talking, in the robing room beside the sanctuary. A clatter of lockers being opened.

  ‘Hold the church, and send out an escape pod,’ insisted Moloch, urgently.

  ‘Oh yeah, that’s a good idea. And who volunteers to lead that party? Do tell?’ The black dragon laughed. ‘Fiorinda’s staying, and so are we. We are all sanctified. What’s the worst that could happen?’

  She had tried to foster the bad faith between the Goth and his second in command. Unfortunately Baal was capable of darkly suspecting the older man was a traitor, and still hero-worshiping him. That’s the trouble with suicide warriors, they just don’t fucking care… Fiorinda had a soft spot for Baal, though he was an idiot with a deeply deranged sense of right and wrong. She didn’t like Moloch: no chemistry there. Plus, she couldn’t prove it, but she was fucking sure there’d been no US freelances in Yorkshire. He was a bullshitter, and he (sip) tasted wrong. She tasted things. She had discovered that she could divert her senses: it helped to make the chair bearable. Shit, what if Baal sends me off, in Moloch’s custody? He wouldn’t. He was crazy but he wasn’t stupid. She knew that Ax and Sage were really here, but could not figure out how to join them. Time to come out from under the endorphins.

  ‘Hey, Morrigan. Hey, Elaine.’

  The chief witch came to grovel in that annoying way. Boned and beaded locks of thick brown hair fell over her breasts. In life she had been a programmer, a cat lover, a mother, a gentle person. She’d been driven to Lavoisier by sheer despair at the ruin of the living world. She was dead now. It was as well to remember that, when you tried to reason with these people. Some of them were so desperate, sincere, and justified it hurt, but they were all dead.

  ‘Let me out of the chair! You don’t get it, they believe I’ve joi
ned your cause. They’re here to kill me, and then you’ll never win me over.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘Yes I do. Lavoisier is so full of magic, I’ve had a moment of prescience.’

  ‘Then you must free yourself,’ said the Morrigan, triumphantly. ‘I knew we’d find a way to reach you in the end.’

  Damn. Fuck you, fucking logic-chopping geek.

  It had been established long ago that Ax can run, but he can’t sprint, and Sage can sprint but he can’t run. The man with the endurance muscle does the jogging around, the muscle-bound geek (invincible at close quarters) does the safe- breaking. Ax was painfully aware, as he jogged around, that Sage was no longer invincible at close quarters. They couldn’t talk to each other, had to maintain radio silence, and he had a terrible feeling… He also had company, a shadow that harried his enemies, but he had no time to worry about that. The streets were no longer deserted, they were crawling with Lavoisien militia: hunting the intruders while the adepts in the church backed them up (presumably) with ritual.

  They thought they were hunting both intruders, because Ax had Sage with him—popping up from doorways etc., in hologram form—while he tried to put as many of the natives as possible out of action. He wasn’t fussed whether he killed them or not, as long as they went down. He couldn’t work fast enough. He’d become convinced, as he relied heavily on the hologram Sage, and on the virtual monsters he sent scurrying down ghost town streets, that the e/m pulse was about to arrive and all his digital tech would be fried, any moment.

  The monsters were immix grafix bots, based on the candy-coloured enemy forces in ‘Fiorinda’s House’: illegal toys, ramped up to deliver a burst of irresistible panic fear to anyone who got an eyeful. They weren’t so effective now the opposing team knew to look away.

  He had to keep close to the church. He was running round in circles, it was all getting very familiar. He jogged down an alley, drawing the latest band of death-wishers after him, dropped behind the stoop with the broken step and turned, tossing immix beads like dice. He was nearly out of this ammunition, low on the solid stuff also. Sage had taken both packs, to stash them in case of further need, which had seemed like a good idea, but it meant when Ax was out, he was out. The fx bots blossomed in the gloom, (it was almost full dark now). At least two of the bastards caught a hit, and fled wailing. Up comes Ax’s rifle, they are dead, he told himself, to combat his horror of falling back into killing mode. Not one of them going to survive the FBI raid. He jumped for the top of the wall at the end of his alley, one leg over and there was someone beside him.

  ‘All done,’ said a voice in his ear. ‘On my way.’

  ‘See you there.’

  He fell on the other side, picked himself up and ran, bent double, seeking cover, not looking for a fight any more. Te image of Fergal Kearney’s malevolent, grinning face was pasted inside his skull: he was flooded with awful conviction, mirror image of the manic joy of fusion. This was all wrong, terribly wrong, this was heading straight for hell… But ignore it. The western approach to the church was deserted, except for one fallen Lavoisien, who must be dead, because he hadn’t stirred in several of Ax’s circuits. Ax arrived back there, hoping to God the ghost had not followed him, and crouched in the shelter of the barricade at the end of the street. Sage cdropped from above a few minutes later.

  ‘Hi, soldier.’

  ‘Hi, other soldier. How are you doing?’

  ‘Not too bad. But there’s more of them than we thought, and they keep coming… You?’

  ‘Well, we know where they’re coming from. All set. The back door is wired and ready to blow, I’ve moved the car, an’ made a hole in the defences on the boneyard side. I don’t think they’ll get reinforcements, it’s a forgotten front this evening. Now we go in, stop the rathole, rob the restaurant, deal with any unexpected obstacles in situ, and out.’

  Blue eyes, smiling, saying I’ve been killing people again, help me here.

  They’re already dead, thought Ax, but he felt this was not an answer.

  ‘I’m glad it’s going to be so easy. Ready?’

  Sage grabbed the barricade and propelled himself upwards. He reached a hand to Ax, swung him onto the top of the pile and froze, staring. Ax turned, chills down his spine, and saw the raw-boned Irishman, preternaturally imposed on the darkness: sword on his back and his thumbs in his rifle sling. His eyes were dark flames in his carrion flesh.

  ‘Will yez give me a hand up, fer old time’s sake, Sage me darlin’?’

  The dead man’s hand reached up. Sage reached down. Ax felt a shock, as the Irishman brushed past him: a touch like thistledown, a horrifying, human glance from the dead eyes. He and Sage dropped onto the beaten earth in front of the church, and were alone again.

  There were no Lavoisiens visible, dead or alive. Ax stood guard while Sage painted explosive, delicately, onto the big old lock, and the bolts above and below. The last thing they wanted now was a pile of rubble. Back off, duck down. The lock burst, the bolts ripped out. They pushed open the doors and walked in. The Last Supper had been cleared away. The torches around the walls filled the nave with smoke and flamelight. There was still a crowd of people, but no children left, thank God. The congregation was backed up towards the sanctuary. Encumbering robes, skyclad bodies. The élite rely on magic.

  ‘You’re making a mistake, Mr Preston,’ said the Goth Christ with the black tattoo, proud and resolute. ‘We have powers you do not dream of, and you are on the wrong side.’

  The white-swathed queen sat on her throne, unmoving, her great eyes blank stones in a pale oval blurred by the smoke of the flambeaux.

  Ax did crowd control, Sage headed for the railed stairhead to the crypt. ‘Fiorinda!’ he called, ‘Do something, babe!’ He threw a handful of immix beads and laid a flashlight on the top step, to keep the monsters fueled. This lot were Medusas, nasty looking coelenterates, a dull pink bag, livid tentacles, whole thing with an apparent height about three metres. Sage and Ax were immune, they had fx blockers in their headset screens. Panic assaulted the adepts like a wrecking ball, charged up as they were with fight-or-flight. It wouldn’t last, but they were sliced off at the knees, falling over, fighting each other, rushing for the doors. Ax made his way through without firing a shot. Sage stayed where he was, in case of reinforcement from below.

  ‘Resist! Resist!’ yelled Elaine, arms raised, buffeted by the crowd, ‘Close your eyes! Avert your eyes, tell yourselves it isn’t real!’

  Ax reached Fiorinda. She did not speak, her eyes were huge, all pupil. He understood that she could not move, and ripped at the white veiling around her throat. Shit… He had cutters in his belt, but oh, God, this was going to take time. She tipped her head back, while he severed the hasp of the thorned collar round her throat. Another band pinioned her arms. He cut it, dragged the metal apart and heard her whisper, the faintest breath.

  ‘Ax-!’

  ‘My baby. Soon as you’re free we’re out of here, it’s all set up, we have the Rat outside, oh, shit your hands too—’

  ‘Ax-’

  He needed to watch what he was doing, and stay aware of the wild rumpus going on behind him, which might erupt this way any moment. But he had to look up, and his heart stopped. Everything was so familiar, so often he’d been here before. Fiorinda looking at him like that, as from an open grave, he felt sure he was in London. It was a cold morning, the leaves on the plane trees a faint golden green…‘Elaine the Morrigan,’ whispered Fiorinda.

  Ax spun around. The woman in the brown robe still had her arms raised above the calming crowd. If he’d realised a moment sooner what she was doing he’d have blown her away, but he didn’t. She shouted out, very loud, words that ran together into a wordless yell, and Sage dropped like a stone.

  Fiorinda leapt from her chair, white veils flying, the last of her shackles tearing like paper. If she reaches fusion we are done for. She’s weaponised. The thought slammed into his mind as he ran after her, a superpositio
n of Harry’s vision, the black rose in the room with the secret Committee, and the horror that had filled him today, the ghost of Fergal, brimful now and brimming over, not his own death, a lot of death… Fiorinda dived to her knees, grabbed Sage by the shoulders, ‘Ax! He’s all right! Trust me, come on, get us out of here-!’

  Sage was trying to stand, it was true, he was only stunned. Ax held him up, thank God this was the new, slimline Aoxomoxoa… Could they get to the exit? He’d have to fire on the unarmed crowd, only held off by their fear of Fiorinda, but he couldn’t get them all. She would have to—

  Oh God, no. She must not commit magic-

  ‘Fiorinda, I can handle this. Whatever it is, don’t do it! Don’t do it—!’

  She smiled at him, unearthly sweet, and shook her head.

  Something took shape at the sanctuary rail, rising like thick smoke, bordered by flame. A big raw-boned shadow stood there, rifle on his back this time, and his sword naked in his hands. His eyes glowed. ‘Git out of here, the three of yez,’ he crooned, grinning like a Hallowe’en lantern, tossing back his shining black curls. He swung the broadsword up in a salute, and flames shot to the rooftree.

  ‘These darlin’s are all mine.’

  The monster leapt, with a joyous howl, into the crowd. Ax and Fiorinda, dragging Sage between them, ran for the robing room. Ax detonated Sage’s charge, (not so delicate, this one) adding a thunderous bass to the Hieronymous Bosch chaos. Out through the blasted doorway, into the violet night.

  ‘Which way?’ gasped Fiorinda.

  ‘Up here—’

  Over the barricade, down a starlit dirt street, that ended at the earthwork in a wall of timber, rubble, earth and brushwood. The Rugrat was waiting for them, immobilised and concealed, mirroring the surfaces of night. You were gone a long time, it thought, as she touched it. But I waited. I knew you’d come.

  Ax saw that if the Rat tried its pit-climbing trick on the heap of shit looming over them they’d be buried. He wasn’t sure how that command worked, anyway. He swung the car around, gunned it in reverse until its arse hit the barricade at the other end of the street, and went for it. The Rugrat belted up the earthworks in RTE, almost lost it halfway up the tottering slope, bucked like a mule and powered over the top. The back of the car swung around in a lazy arc, the front wheels slid forward. It righted itself, flew over the ditch, landed bouncing and rushed up the boneyard, in a flurry of crunched Victorian memorials of violent death.