The butterfly flickered downwards and landed on her face, tickling her with its blue wings. It hopped on to her chin, down on to her neck. Then it joined her body again: to become a blue butterfly tattoo inscribed on the skin between her throat and her jaw. Its mind merged with her mind; she was one again.
And a moment later she cut loose from the blood trails that she’d left behind in the canal, and felt a wrench. It was a strange sensation, like losing a layer of skin. Hayley felt giddy as her thousands of selves collapsed into a unitary intelligence.
Franco was beside her, motionless.
They lay there until dawn and then they got up.
Four
Hayley watched Liam for a long while, wary of committing herself.
He was alone, as she had insisted. Sitting at a table for two with his back to a pillar. A big man, at ease with himself, nursing a pint of bitter. Alert, aware of his surroundings, like an animal in the jungle.
Just as Hayley was. Her flesh tingled. She could smell lager and beer and pale ale and whisky and gin and Jägerbombs and slices of lime. Sweaty bodies. Eau de cologne and perfume and old socks and cotton. It was intoxicating. She damped it all down, till all she had was vision and hearing. Then she got up and strode forward. Showtime.
‘Hey,’ said Hayley, and sat down at the beer-damp table. Liam nodded calmly, as if she’d arrived dead on time to a schedule set by him.
‘The prodigal, eh?’
She’d been missing for a month and then she’d called Liam out of the blue and here she was again. On the cadge, once more. Looking to get hold of some of his ‘fucking money’ so she could live a life on the run with her father from another planet.
Ah Hayley you are a piece of work, Hayley thought.
For the first two weeks after the massacre, Hayley and Billy had lived in the mountains around Hebden Bridge, until the search parties had given up. Living on no food and no water, drenched by the rain, sleeping without shelter on bitterly cold nights in the Yorkshire wilds. For Hayley it was the happiest time of her entire life
Since the events at Hebden Bridge, every part of her body was alive. Her skin her eyes and ears her teeth her fingernails and, most of all, now you come to mention it, her skin. All of it from the skin on her nose to the skin on the backs of her toes. When it rained, she could feel each drop of water. When she was cold she could feel the chatter of her teeth like an orchestra in her head.
It was like being blind and deaf and colour blind and semi-comatose and then – suddenly and instantly – becoming healed and getting all those sensations back in a thunderflash.
Billy however was in a bad way. His physical injuries had finally healed, though more slowly than hers. But psychologically he had been damaged by the events that night at Hebden Bridge. They had defied their enemies and they had killed many of them – probably all of them. And Hayley was fine with that. All she had done was defend herself. It was her or them, and, frankly, she was delighted that it was them.
But Billy felt guilty. He had broken the rules of his kind. He had stood and fought and that, so he firmly believed, was a sin in the eyes of a God who, justifiably, now despised him. And so Billy was lost in sadness and depression and, let’s face it, self-pity. He was both wretched and pathetic, and Hayley was sorely tempted to abandon him.
Eventually she had to leave him in a state of stupor in the hills while she went foraging. She memorised the landmarks, piled bracken on his motionless body, then she had travelled down into the valley at the dead of night until she spotted a five star hotel.
She snuck into the grounds and broke in via a back door with the intention of stealing clothes and money from one of the rooms. Her wedding gown had pretty much fallen off her after she had crawled out of the canal; stiff with blood, drenched, and riddled with bullet holes. And her shoes were worse than useless.
And so she travelled naked and barefoot from her refuge in the mountains into the hotel. She could move so silently that only an owl could hear her tread. She did not breathe. The only noise she made was when she slammed the door of one of the rooms with her palm to break the lock; and then she was inside. And though it was pitch black she could see everything.
That night, she stole a tweed suit and brogues for Billy, a top and skirt and sensible shoes for herself, several jackets, and a wallet and purse with about three hundred pounds cash inside. The shoes were too big but the rest looked fine.
Then she unerringly made her way back up the mountain and found Billy dead. His heart had stopped. She guessed he had made it stop. He did not breathe; she assumed he had chosen to stop breathing.
She watched him for a while and wept. And after she had wept a long while, she touched the tears with the tips of her fingers, and placed her finger tips upon his eyelids.
The salty moisture oozed off the skin of her fingers and entered his eyes; and made his tear ducts spill forth their juices.
Thus, her tears mingled with his tears; and through this sentient commingled moisture she silently spoke to him: ‘Get a bloody grip, Billy. And that’s an order.’
Billy snapped out of his coma.
‘What have you done to me?’ Billy whined out loud.
Hayley stroked his forehead, the poor sad boy.
‘We won, Billy. They lost. Is that so bad?’ she said to him.
‘I am a traitor to my –’
She raised a finger to hush him.
Her tears spoke softly: ‘You are a hero. You saved my life. If it wasn’t for you, I would be dead. Billy! Take pride in what you did. You saved my life. Jane – your beloved Jane would be proud of you.’
That did it.
Then his tears spoke back to her tears, begging forgiveness.
And Billy was back.
After which, the two of them had returned to civilisation. But Hayley was tired of stealing clothes and food and other people’s purses. Hence, Liam.
‘Sorry I, you know,’ said Hayley. She had no idea what precisely she was apologising for.
‘We thought you were dead,’ Liam said calmly.
‘I almost was.’
Liam was glancing around. Looking for what? Undercover cops? An escape route?
‘So what happened?’ he asked. ‘You didn’t stay in your B&B that night. The night of the wedding, I mean. You weren’t there when we got back from honeymoon. Chey was – fair play, that was out of order, girl.’
‘There was an explosion.’
‘Yeah, I know. Gas main. Two people died.’
‘More than two.’
‘You saw it?’
‘I was it. Long story. Liam, I’m in trouble.’
Liam stopped glancing around and stared at her for a long time. His hard man stare. Testing her, she guessed.
They were in a Bradford ’spoons, the Titus Salt it was called. A vast palace of booze on several floors. Hayley had medium-length brown hair now, she’d lost the tunnel piercings and the tattoos; she was wearing a Monsoon dress. It had taken Liam a moment or so to even recognise her.
‘What kind of trouble?’ he said eventually.
‘With the law.’
‘Ah, then you’ve come to the right man.’
‘And the government.’
‘You’re losing me now.’
‘I’m being hunted by a secret society called the Defenders of Humanity.’
He flinched. ‘And now I’m going to pretend I’ve never seen you before.’
‘They tried to kill me, Liam.’
‘Your sister,’ Liam said pointedly. ‘Cried her fucking eyes out. On our honeymoon. Her Mam was texting her five times a day, she was worried sick.’
‘I seriously doubt that.’
‘That your Mam cares about you?’
‘She doesn’t give a shit about anyone, let alone me.’
Liam was rarely exasperated but now he was: ‘What is it with you, Hayley? How come you are always the bloody victim? Always the one who’s hard done by, what’s that about, hey?’
Hayley thought about the thirteen years, from the time she was four to the time she was seventeen, when every day her mother would shout at her or hit her or poke her with pins. The pins were a masterstroke because you could never see the marks. And all the while, Cheyney was the best girl, the favourite girl, the princess.
‘I guess I’m a spoiled brat,’ she conceded.
‘Well,’ said Liam.
‘I was always jealous of Chey,’ Hayley admitted. ‘She was the pretty one. I was the – I don’t know what I was.’
‘You’re pretty.’
‘Don’t tell me I’m fucking pretty, you dick! I will not be defined by how pretty I am or am not!’
‘You scrub up well, too, glad you got rid of those piercings.’
‘Damn you Liam, I will not be defined by how I look!’
‘My point is, a lot of boys – or girls come to that – who might otherwise find you attractive might well be discouraged by the fact you’re angry all the time and you dress like you are the potatoes in a sack.’
She had to smile at that one.
‘I need money, Liam.’
That was hardly news to him.
‘How serious is this, exactly?’
‘They tried to kill me. People are trying to kill me.’
He was giving her a sad look.
‘I’m not making this up. I’m not delusional.’
‘Who is trying to kill you? This secret society?’ Liam scoffed.
Hayley took out the serrated camping knife she had bought in the sporting goods shop; and she cut off her little finger with a single fast jerk.
Blood spurted.
She made a gobbet of her blood leap into the air and spell Liam’s name above the table. Then she made her severed little finger dance. Meanwhile, she healed the stump so it stopped spurting.
Liam absorbed all this. In fairness, he gave good deadpan.
‘Will that grow back, like?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then what happens to –’
‘It’ll – well I don’t know.’ Hayley had never cut off a finger before. She had no idea if it would shrivel and die or live a whole separate live as a semi-sentient autonomous finger.
She wrapped the finger in a food napkin and slipped it in her purse.
‘Money, Liam. And somewhere to live. Please?’
Liam was considering all the options; you could almost see the cogs whirr. ‘What are you, Hayley?’
‘Hard to say.’
He drained his pint. He stared into space. ‘What do I tell your sister?’
‘Tell her I’m okay. No, tell her nothing. No -’
‘I’ll tell her you’re a raving lunatic and you’ve run away to Spain.’
‘She knows I’m a lunatic. Why Spain?’
‘Jesus, Hayley. I need another drink.’
‘I’ll get one in.’
She waited.
‘But can I have some money first?’
‘I do so enjoy our little chats,’ Gwendolyn said amiably.
‘The pleasure is entirely – not mutual,’ said Jane Carter.
Jane tried to smile but she no longer had functioning muscles in her face. She had not seen herself in a mirror since that day when the purple-haired woman had smashed her skull into pieces. But she guessed that she was a piece of work. Her skull had healed together, the brain she had left had reconnected with her neurological system, and most importantly her blood now pumped freely around the husk of flesh that was all she could call a body. But she was not human, by any stretch of the imagination. She was an organism with a human mind and an alien intellect and a body that had knitted together as randomly as a forest of weeds.
And here she was, chained to a wall in Rothbury’s castle. A dismal life some might say and yet she was content.
Jane felt kinship with Lady Gwendolyn. They were of the same social class – aristocrats through and through. They were both born as only daughters in families full of strong-willed men who were barons and earls and knights and they both knew what it was to have to fight to be your own woman.
‘The gardens are looking glorious,’ Gwendolyn said. ‘I wish you could see them. The Rhododendron Dell. The cherry blossoms.’
‘Sounds lovely.’
The dungeon was brighter now. At Gwendolyn’s insistence, electric lights had been installed. Tapestries were draped on walls, the ones from the east wing. There was a music player so that the prisoners could listen to Bach and Ravel and Mozart and, at Jane’s request, Elvis Presley and Billy Fury. They were still prisoners, they were still chained, but at least they had some creature comforts now.
‘What else?’ Gwendolyn prompted.
‘All I know is that we came from a larger planet than this and we lived in three different kinds of sentient life forms. But it was the scaly three legged ones that built us the ships that travelled through space.’
‘So you have already told me,’ Gwendolyn said reprovingly.
‘Because that is all I know.’
‘But where did you land? And why did your host bodies die? They must have had space suits. They must have had weapons. Why didn’t they conquer the Earth? Back then, you would not have had much to contend with.’
Gwendolyn was writing a history of the Exters. It was hard, though, for Exters have no concept of history. They have attributes and intelligence but no self-consciousness. They have survival instincts but no strategy for survival. Try asking Julius Caeser’s flu virus for a history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire; that was the challenge Gwendolyn had set herself.
‘I do not know.’
‘I asked you to think about it. Did you think about it?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘I still do not know.’
Were her people really from an alien planet? Jane didn’t even know that much for sure. All she knew was that there was an immortal part of her. A part that controlled her by forcing her to be cowardly, and venal, and selfish. For centuries she had thought that was her actual personality. But now she knew better. The parasite-mind was in her, part of her, nestled up against her Jane-mind. Making her the worst possible version of herself. But it was not her.
She could see it in Billy too. She’d always loved him but at times he had shocked her with his shallowness and gutlessness. He shirked confrontation. He stole what he could easily have earned. He did not share. When times were hard he ran away instead of standing his ground. He would never, in any circumstances, fight for what he believed in. But that wasn’t Billy. That was parasite-mind-Billy. The real Billy was noble, and good. So Jane believed.
‘And tell me again how you escaped?’ asked Gwendolyn.
‘I cannot remember,’ Jean said.
‘You must remember. It was barely nine months ago.’
‘Perhaps my chains broke.’
‘You must have broken them.’
‘They are unbreakable.’
‘Then how did they break?
‘I can’t remember.’
Jane remembered well. Her Defender escort picked her up from their flat in Liverpool to take her to her destiny. She was loaded up in the back of a furniture van with a dozen or so other Andromedas. Before she left, Billy had kissed her goodbye. But once the van pulled off she broke her chains with a single twist of her wrists and broke the doors with a kick and jumped off into the road. Then she sprinted back to Billy. The van drove on and her absence wasn’t noticed for some time. The other prisoners, even though she had released them, refused to follow her.
After persuading Billy to run away with her, which took some time, Jane had stolen a car and driven them north to Bradford. There they lived for a few glorious weeks, while her baby grew in her brain. But then they were spotted and had to flee again. This time, she was caught.
‘More to the point, why did you escape?’
‘Wouldn’t you?’ Jane asked.
Gwendolyn’s eyes darted around at the emaciated prisoners in chains hanging from walls
. All of them, including Jane, were desperately weak from blood loss – no breaking chains here. None of them had sanitary facilities. The smell was vile, even though they were squirted with soap and hosed down twice a day.
‘But you had a reason, didn’t you?’ Gwendolyn asked.
Jane said nothing.
Gwendolyn looked sad. Jane knew she was feeling guilty.
Even so, she looked terrific. Gwendolyn’s hair was still grey and her face was still wrinkled. But there was a spring in her step, and a zest in her bearing. The terrible scar-like wrinkles on her brow had faded and she now looked characterful and mature, rather than a wizened crone. Her eyes were no longer rheumy. Her hearing was acute. She bore herself like an active sixty-year-old, not an arthritic eighty-year-old. She was getting younger by the day.
But there was a price to pay. Guilt was her price.
Hence, the tapestries and the Bach.
‘Do you ever wish you could have children, Jane?’ Gwendolyn asked.
With no functioning muscles in her face, Jane did not have to strive to remain deadpan. Yet she felt her heart skip a beat.
‘Of course not. To bring a child into this life would be a crime.’
‘That means you do miss having children. I do, you know. Hugh and I, we never – but there you go.’
‘If I had a child, I would call it Gwendolyn,’ Jane said.
‘Oh now you’re buttering me up.’
‘I’m glad you come and talk to me. These are the best moments of my day,’ Jane lied.
Somewhere out there, Jane’s child lived. Her Exter-child, her parasite-brain child was alive in the body of that purple-haired girl. An unthinking unfeeling uncaring alien entity but still her child.
That gave her solace.
‘I know all about it,’ said Gwendolyn. ‘Hugh explained it in terrible detail. For one of your kind to be born, you must kill a baby. A human baby.’
‘That’s not how it works.’
‘You are child killers.’
‘No child ever dies.’
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