The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 16

by Stephen Jones

  A waiter tried to shove the tom back onto the street, but she wasn’t shifting. A runnel of blood mixed in with black on her face.

  “Assault with a deadly weapon, miss,” said Fred, raising his voice. “Could you identify the culprit?”

  She shook her lopsided head, and said “I don’t want to get involved. It’s not healthy.”

  “Nothing you do seems healthy. Have you considered going home to mum?”

  “Who do you think put me out in the first place, PC Plod?”

  She sat down at a table and asked for tea, spilling odd coins from a tiny, long-handled purse to prove she could pay for it. She fished out some safety-pins and made emergency repairs to her top. Then, she picked at her hair. The drying, setting goo made unusual spikes. If she kept at it, she might set a new fashion.

  A second wave of marchers passed, waving banners. It was less like a parade of protest than a show of force.

  “They do this once a bleedin’ week,” groaned Zarana.

  Fred saw slogans – DOWN WITH SIN!, HEED THE WRATH, HARLOTS OUT, SMITE THE FLESH-PEDDLERS.

  “Booth went spare about that little lot,” said Zarana.

  “The late, lamented?” prompted Richard.

  “Someone must lament, though you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone to own up to it.”

  “We never did establish why the Obscene Publications Squad was head-quartered in ‘Skinderella’s’. If you remember, I did ask.”

  Zarana looked to Fred for the nod. He gave it.

  “It was a payoff to Boot Boy from Mickey Gates. Booth took a fat profit out of the place. In Soho, the coppers are full partners in the smut rackets. They get all the perks. Law’s in the way of folk who want to sell and other folk who want to buy, so who’s to complain if the law ducks aside? Then sticks out its greedy hand?”

  Richard looked disappointed. His battles took place beyond the ken of the rest of the world, and he hadn’t kept up on tediously everyday crime.

  “She’s right, guv’nor,” said Fred. “It’s an open secret. Every new broom at the Yard promises to sweep clean, then lifts the rock in Soho, takes a look at what’s squirming, and decides to do something else. More parking meters.”

  “You’re telling me that the squad charged with regulating obscenity is actually responsible for disseminating it?”

  “More or less.”

  “Good grief,” said Richard. “I assume our friends in black take objection to this laissez-faire situation?”

  Zarana nodded. “When this mob showed up, Gates bent Booth’s ear off. He was payin’ for protection, so he thought he was entitled to it.”

  The marchers wore plain unisex boiler-suits, and wound black scarves around their heads and lower faces. It must get steamy in those outfits on a hot day, but they were also indistinguishable from each other come an identity parade. They were well-drilled – placard-wavers, bull-roarers and paint grenadiers all in place and working with brisk, brutal efficiency.

  “You can’t buy them off,” said Zarana. “Booth tried that straight away. They’re god-bothered loonies.”

  “There’s no explicit mention of God in their various slogans,” mused Richard.

  “They call themselves The Festival of Morality,” said Zarana.

  Richard looked at the protesters. He steepled his fingers and closed his eyes, reaching out to get a deeper impression of them. Then he snapped to.

  “Frederick, are you up to date on this movement?”

  “Only what I read in the papers. You can imagine why they’re here – to take a stand against immorality and licentiousness. They’re a reaction to the ‘permissive society’. When blokes like Booth get too blatant, and stop keeping seamy stuff out of sight, someone else will step in and call for a Bonfire of the Bleedin’ Vanities.”

  “Lord Leaves,” said Zarana.

  “Of course,” said Richard. “Algernon Arbuthnot Leaves, Lord Leaves of Leng. Him, I know of.”

  “That’s the bloke,” she said, pointing. “High Lord Muckety-Muck of Killjoy.”

  An open-top black limousine decorated with white symbols crawled along at the centre of the procession. Sat on a raised throne-like affair in the back was an old, old man in long black robes and an ear-flapped skullcap. It struck Fred that he really had copied his look from Savonarola. His hands were liver-spotted and gnarled, but he could hold up a megaphone and bellow with the best of them.

  “Is he singing?” asked Fred.

  “Not exactly Gilbert O’Sullivan, is he?’ sniped Zarana.

  “You have to applaud the effort,” said Richard. “He’s not afraid of seeming ridiculous.”

  Zarana, who obviously took the Festival personally, kept quiet.

  Lord Leaves continued to give vent. In the front passenger seat, next to a uniformed chauffeur, sat a twelve-year-old blond boy with a black blindfold around his eyes – presumably to save him from sights that might warp his little mind. The lad strummed an amplified acoustic guitar, accompanying the Father of the Festival. Looking up beside His Lordship was an adoring young woman dressed like some sort of nun, hair completely covered by a wimple, blue eyes blazing with groupie-like adoration.

  Fred made out the words:

  “Sin and sodomy, lust and lechery . . . bring about man’s fall, Filth and blasphemy, porn and obloquy . . . I despise them all!”

  The woman rattled a black tambourine. It struck Fred that she was the most genuinely aroused person he’d seen all day – certainly more turned on than the tarts and punters on the streets.

  The insight gave him a weird thrill, which Zarana noticed. She tugged his sleeve, drawing attention to herself with a cattish little frown.

  “Not often one hears the word ‘obloquy’ used in a lyric,” said Richard. “I shall consider writing a letter to The Times.”

  The tambourine woman’s electric gaze passed over the street, as if scouting (quite sensibly) for assassins, and hit on Froff. Fred thought for a moment she was looking exciting hatred directly into his bowels, but then sensed the attention was for Zarana.

  He put an arm round her (again). “Don’t let them bother you, luv,” he said.

  “Easy for you to say,” she sniffed. “It takes a week to get that gunk off, and you can’t work. In my line, there ain’t exactly paid sick days or invalidity benefits.”

  “Is that Leaves’ granddaughter looking daggers?” Fred asked Zarana. “High Priestess in charge of ripping out hearts.”

  “You should glance at the society pages when flipping through the paper to the racing results,” said Richard. “That is Lady Celia Asquith-Leaves. His Lordship’s wife.”

  “Dirty old sod,” breathed Zarana.

  “One mustn’t rush to judgement,” said Richard, which was quite comical in the circumstances.

  An image of His Lordship’s wedding night sprung up in Fred’s mind. He did his best to try to expunge it completely.

  “I bet they read the magazines before throwin’ them into the fire,” said Zarana, not helping at all. “Then get worked up into a lather and . . .”

  “You’re making our Fred uncomfortable, Queen of the Nile,” said Richard.

  “Sorry, I’m sure,” said Zarana, wriggling close to him.

  Fred wished he were somewhere else. Say, sinking knee-deep into freezing mire on Dartmoor with hooded slime-cultists puffing poison thorns at him through blowpipes and ichorous elderly things summoned from the bog-bottom padding after him on yard-long, mossy feet.

  The parade came to a halt. Uniformed police constables moved in. Their path was blocked by serried ranks of bull-roarers and placard-wavers. The Festival had a solid grasp of demo tactics.

  Lord Leaves finished his song and tossed his megaphone to a minion.

  He flung back his robes like the Man With No Name tossing his poncho over his shoulder. He wore what looked like a black body stocking, circled with the white symbols that were also marked on his car. He picked up something that looked a lot like a sten gun fed by a thick hos
epipe.

  Zarana darted under the table.

  Fred realized the girl knew more than he did and was probably being sensible, but couldn’t resist the street theatre.

  Soho residents – ‘denizens’, really – mounted some sort of counterattack, ponces linking arms with toms, bruisers emerging from sex shops and strip clubs to put up a stout defence. They jostled the foot-soldiers of the Festival.

  Lord Leaves of Leng twisted a nozzle on his gun.

  A high-pressure stream of black liquid squirted in an arc, splashing down on the counter-protesters – who scattered.

  A disciplined, scripted cheer rose from the black-clad ranks.

  “I defy,” yelled His Lordship, unamplified but booming. “I shall smite.”

  He played the jet-spray against windows and hoardings.

  Wheeling around, back and forth, Lord Leaves scrawled thick, dripping lines across signage and come-on posters, upping the flow whenever an image of an unclad woman got in the way. The black liquid was thinner than paint but lumpy and staining. Neon tubes fizzed and burst. He aimed his jet at a porn-broker’s window, pushing in the glass and smashing down racks of 8mm film loops, Swedish magazines, plastic novelties and brown-paper-bagged glossies. An angry manager lost his footing as he tried to protect his merchandise. He scrabbled around in the wet mess, falling heavily.

  The cheers became more genuine. Harsh, mocking laughter.

  Zarana peeped up again. “Tell me when it’s over,” she said.

  “His Lordship enjoys taking the fight to the fallen,” observed Richard. “He is something of a showman.”

  “You know what these Jesus freaks are like, guv’nor.”

  “Those white symbols on his suit and car have nothing to do with Christianity, Frederick. Which is interesting, don’t you think. Lord Leaves is a man of great faith, evidently. An inspiration to followers. A black beacon of morality in an age he might deem is going to the dogs. Yet his faith isn’t one hitherto associated with morality in the limited sense expressed here. The only thing I’ve seen in Soho that really goes with those symbols was your dead policemen. Lord Leaves is a great one for smiting and the late DI Booth was certainly smitten.”

  Fred looked again at Lord Leaves, exulting as liquid filth poured down upon harlots and whore-mongers. He considered the blue-eyed priestess, the blindfolded minstrel, the well-drilled troops. The Nazis had been against decadence, too.

  “That, my dears,” said Richard, pointing at Lord Leaves of Leng, “is a Suspect.”

  VI Repeat Offender

  By nightfall, the street looked as if the Luftwaffe were blitzing again. Lights came on by fits and starts, many broken or sparking. The pavement was shiny, as black goo congealed into plasticky, pungent shellac.

  Fred tried to avoid getting any on his Docs.

  The march turned into a torchlight rally in Soho Square. Lord Leaves sang more songs – “Cast the First Stone” was surprisingly catchy – between other “turns”. “Concerned parents” made halting speeches, and “fallen souls” recanted previous harlotry at great length and in explicit detail.

  Zarana had popped back to “Skindy’s”, to see if she needed to go on again. The management might dim the lights this evening, if not in tribute to the late DI Booth then to avoid attracting an angry mob of torch-wielding zealots. She had invited Fred to come watch her Queen of the Nile routine some time when all hell wasn’t breaking loose. A snake was involved, apparently.

  Richard pottered around ruins, trying to pick up “impressions”. Fred gathered it wasn’t easy. At the calmest of times, Soho was awash with emotional discharge. Now, it was a maelstrom of mixed feelings. If all this energy could be piped to power stations, the United Kingdom wouldn’t need North Sea oil.

  Fred showed his warrant card to a stray constable and asked for a report. The copper had a splurge of black across his uniform and was looking for his lost helmet. He was in a state of high pissed-offness.

  “If this had been a student demo at the Yank Embassy,” complained the constable, “the Special Patrol Group would be out in body-armour, with CS gas and riot-shields. A hundred arrests before supper-time, commendations all round. Because it’s bloody prudes, it was just me and poor old Baxter trying ‘move along nicely now’ on an army of roaring dervishes. Bastards said they’d march tomorrow, then switched schedules. That Lord Leaves is a menace. I’d rather have Hell’s Angels any day.”

  Fred remembered he still hadn’t called New Scotland Yard to share the sad news about DI Booth. At this rate, they would read about it in the morning papers. Richard said a forensics team would only get in the way. It was nice having such pull in high places that he could conduct his own private murder investigation.

  Among those who came out to peep at the mess was Mickey Gates.

  Through the rolled-down window of an I’ve-got-money Rolls Royce, Gates watched, a hard-faced dolly bird in each armpit, foot-long cigar in his gob. Eric and Colin, his monkeys, supervised damage control at a couple of Gates enterprises – a private cinema club and a “sex arcade”. They chased off scavengers.

  “Mr Gates is having a bad day,” said Fred.

  The PC cheered up a bit.

  “Isn’t his Roller illegally parked?” said Fred. “See if you can rustle up a traffic warden. Get him ticketed.”

  The constable laughed. “Wouldn’t I like to see that.”

  Gates caught sight of Richard and frowned, even more furiously. He was on the point of shouting something.

  Suddenly, with an almighty whump!, a giant invisible boot came down on the Rolls. The roof caved and windows burst. Side-doors buckled, ejecting the matched set of dollies. They crab-walked away, awkward in hot-pants and fishnets, scraping knees and elbows, hairdos loose. At least, they were well out of it.

  Fred saw Mickey bite off a chunk of cigar and swallow it.

  Then metal folded around him. The car lifted off the street, and bent. Metal crumpled with dinosaur screams. Dents appeared in the bodywork. The boot ruptured, vomiting a stream of bright, shiny paper – torn girlie magazines.

  Richard was nearer than Fred. He considered the sight, with cool interest. Sometimes, the guv’nor just plain forgot to be sensibly scared – that was one of the talents Fred brought to the team.

  Eric and Colin just stood and gaped, like dozens of others. None of them tried to get too close.

  Whatever was crushing the Roller wasn’t quite invisible.

  Greyish stuff swirled up, from the street and the rubble, lacing out of thin air, forming a giant, squat man-shape. Mr Sludge had a domed lump of head but no neck. The bubble body, thick and smeary, distorted light. Power flexed in trunk-like limbs.

  Red dripped from the car, which buckled and compacted as if in a press at a wrecking yard. As the Rolls was abused, the giant became more solid. Fred had no doubt this was the phantasm, golem or affrit that had killed Booth. The M.O. was unmistakable. Mr Sludge glistened, glowing almost. Blood-squirts shot into its body, lighting up a nerve-network of red traces. Girlie pictures clung to its torso, plastered like papier-mâché layers, smoothing over an enormous musculature. Bright smiles and air-brushed curves, pink tits and bums, faded to grey leatheriness. Dozens of nipples stood out like scabs for a few seconds, then healed.

  Like a Herculean weight-lifter, Mr Sludge hoisted high a rough cube that had been a car and its occupant.

  Richard tried gestures and incantations, which got the thing’s attention but little else.

  The grey giant looked down at the Man From the Diogenes Club.

  Fred remembered what Busy Boddey had said about its mouthless smile. Here it was again. Eyelights shone.

  The car-lump was bowled at Richard.

  Fred ran and jumped, shoving his guv’nor out of the way. They sprawled on the pavement as the heavy cube tore into the road. The Spirit of Ecstasy bonnet-ornament stuck up from the mess, undamaged, wings shining. Solid workmanship, that. Gates had known enough to buy British.

  Mr Sludge be
llowed triumph, an unearthly sound produced by leather lungs and aolean harp vocal cords. The roar rose into the skies. Fred’s eardrums hurt, and the noise invaded his skull, sprouting pain-blossoms behind his eyes. The giant’s substance flowed into sound, and departed with the dying echo. The killer flew up up and away, passing from this plane of existence. Detritus showered from the space it had occupied. Stiff, faded fold-outs fell like autumn leaves.

  Richard sat up, fastidiously flicking bits of filth from his clothes.

  “So, it’s a repeat offender,” he said. “Naughty naughty.”

  VII Go-Go Golem

  “What was that?” Fred asked.

  “As I said, a phantasm, golem, affrit, revenant, whatever. An energy presence.”

  “It came out of nothing.”

  Richard raised a finger. “No, Frederick, not nothing. It accumulated matter, stuff. It displaced air. It had a physical effect on this world.”

  Fred looked at the metal lump in the road. Workmen with acetylene-torches were trying to crack it open.

  “I’ll say it was physical.”

  An ambulance was on the scene. No one had hopes for the “patient”. Ordinary police took witness statements, then quietly tore pages from their note-books. Reports of the day’s business had been made to Euan Price, Fred’s contact at New Scotland Yard, and the Ruling Cabal of the Diogenes Club, Richard’s notional superiors. Assistance had been grudgingly offered, but there was a sense that since Fred and Richard got into the case by themselves – thank you very much, Busy Boddey! – it would be as well if they did the heavy lifting and got it tidied away as quietly as possible.

  “It came from nothing, though,” said Fred. “Empty air.”

  “There’s no such thing as nothing,” said Richard. “All sort of stuff washes about. And it can change form, just as water solidifies into ice. Our Mr Sludge gets punching weight from what comes to hand. Very neat and efficient. It’s probably tethered to the district. You heard Lord Leaves, ‘sin and sodomy, lust and lechery’. Potent stuff, that. Especially if you stir in the frustration. Tantalising come-ons whip up the imagination. Then, there’s the let-down of finding out that what’s on offer can’t match what was hoped for. That’s what’s really wrong with porn, by the way – not that it’s against morality, but that it always delivers short measure.”