by Mark Morris
She sniffed, nodded.
‘That was him.’
She stared at me, utterly confused.
‘It’s a long story,’ I said. I inspected the bars, shook them again. I had no idea how I was going to get Clover out of there. I took the heart out of my pocket and held it up. ‘Come on, heart, do your stuff.’ Nothing happened. I grimaced at Clover apologetically. She shook her head again, slumping back to the floor, her legs folding beneath her.
‘It’s no good, Alex. You’ve got to go, before he comes back.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said, with a confidence I didn’t feel. ‘Frank can handle the Surgeon – that’s what he calls the guy who attacked us at Incognito. He’s already rescued me from him once tonight.’
Clover frowned. ‘That wasn’t who took me.’
‘Who was it then?’
‘It was me!’
The voice rang out behind me, echoing off the stone walls. I spun round, and beyond Frank, who was also turning, I was astonished to see Barnaby McCallum step from the shadow of one of the arched openings about three-quarters of the way down the room. He looked just as I had seen him a few nights ago (minus the hole in his head, of course): small, shrivelled and crooked. Wisps of dusty white hair floated about his flaking, cheese-coloured pate and his root-like hand was curled around a walking stick with a silver wolf’s-head handle. He was dressed in a black suit, like an undertaker, and his face was puckered and sharp, like that of some ancient bird of prey.
I gaped at him a moment, and then I said, ‘But you’re dead. I killed you.’
‘Appearances can be deceptive.’ He raised a gnarled hand and pointed at the heart I was holding. ‘Now, I believe you have some property of mine. Perhaps you should give it back before someone gets seriously hurt.’
His voice was screechy and jagged, like a rusty hinge forced into use after years of inactivity. He took a lurching step forward, but then Frank stepped into his path, hand upraised.
McCallum halted, and though his wrinkled mouth curled into a sneer, he seemed more amused than annoyed.
‘What are you?’ he mocked. ‘His little bodyguard?’
‘His chum,’ Frank said. ‘And I can’t let you pass.’
‘What do you think I’ll do? Beat him to death with my walking stick? I’m here to talk, you silly fool. To negotiate.’ Raising his voice he said, ‘You’ve got something that belongs to me, Mr Locke. And I have information that will lead to the recovery of someone you hold very dear.’
My stomach lurched. ‘You know where Kate is?’
Before McCallum could answer, Clover said, ‘Don’t trust him, Alex.’
Frank took another step towards McCallum, the fingers of his upraised hand stretching out as though to touch the air in front of the old man. I saw darkness, like threads of ink in murky water, coiling around Frank’s fingertips and heard the brief, distant crump of explosives and the screams of dying men from a century before.
Then the sound – which had been no more than a murmur – faded and Frank said, ‘She’s right, Alex. This one ain’t what he seems.’
McCallum sighed. ‘I simply want what’s best for all of us. What’s right.’
‘You’re lying,’ Frank said.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ McCallum said, and then he came apart.
One moment he was standing there, and the next he seemed to shred, to unravel, to erupt outwards in all directions. His black suit became a mass of writhing snakes and scuttling insects; his head burst upwards into a fluttering cloud of moths. The myriad creatures advanced in a dark, fragmented wave, swarming across the floor, up the walls, over the ceiling. I caught only a glimpse of them, and heard the sound they made – an angry crackling and rustling, combined with the beating of myriad tiny wings – before Frank threw back his head and opened his mouth and the dark poured out of him.
I turned back to the cage, to Clover, and, like someone trying to unlock a magic door in a fairy tale, tapped the heart several times against the bars. ‘Come on,’ I muttered frantically when nothing happened, ‘come on, come on.’
Clover watched me, her face taut with tension, her lips pulled back over clenched teeth.
‘Hurry, Alex,’ she said.
Anxiety made me snap, ‘I’m trying. Can’t you see I’m trying?’ Then I felt ashamed. She was the one who was caged and shackled. ‘Sorry,’ I muttered. ‘It’s okay. Frank will hold them off.’
The words were barely past my lips when something stung me on the back of my neck. I jumped and turned. A fat grey moth, as big as a hummingbird, was hovering in front of my face. I flapped at it, but instead of retreating the entire front section of its dusty grey body transformed into a glistening, twitching mass of vicious, piranha-like teeth, which darted for my fingers. I jerked back, my shoulders and head impacting painfully with the bars of the cage. Clover screamed as the thing swooped for my face – whereupon the heart that I was still holding in my right hand abruptly turned red hot.
A sizzling white flash tore through my body and erupted out of me almost in the same instant. Before I knew what was happening I saw the moth-thing turn to ash and break apart before my eyes. As the charred fragments drifted to the floor I became aware that the wall of darkness that Frank had exuded was swelling and rippling like the surface of a black sea, trying to contain the wave of creatures, a number of which were even now forcing their way through. It was like watching seabirds floundering in tar, some of them shaking the stuff from their bodies and breaking away, others unable to escape the sticky, black, web-like strands that clung to them. As they struggled and fought, many of the creatures changed shape, losing their form and becoming glutinous, or simply sprouting extra limbs, or cilia, or antennae. In many instances the forms they adopted were monstrous, unrecognisable, a hideous conglomeration of flesh and muscle and bone. Occasionally, glimpsed within the flux, were suggestions of the mammalian or the avian, the aquatic or the insectile. Some of the creatures, having broken through Frank’s barrier, seemed little more than pulsing lumps of gristle with wings or legs, which buzzed and flittered erratically, as though physically damaged or driven mad by their passage through the darkness. Others adapted quickly, forming into vicious, darting projectiles, which came at me and were instantly vaporised by the heart-energy now gushing through and out of me. I saw, spilling out of the black, undulating wall, a litter of what looked like hairless, deformed kittens, slick with amniotic fluid, which crawled and mewled about the floor; they were followed by a baby with a ridged spine and huge eyes that tottered to its feet before being sucked back into the darkness like a thread of smoke into an open mouth.
Turning back to Clover, I was not surprised to see that the heart had changed shape and fused itself to my flesh. Once again it was as though I was wearing a black, pulsating glove, from which spiny antennae rippled as though tasting the air. I reached out and touched one of the bars of the cage, and instantly the metal turned brittle and crumbled away. I touched the next bar and that crumbled too. Within moments I had created a gap large enough to allow me to step into the cage. Clover was on her knees, gaping up at me, open-mouthed. Leaning down, I touched the heart to one of her manacles and it dissolved, falling in rusty flakes to the floor. I did the same to the other manacle and she stood up shakily, staring at me, fear and uncertainty on her face.
‘Come on,’ I said and turned away.
Although I didn’t wait for her response I knew that she was following me. Thanks to the heart I was hyper-aware of my surroundings, was able to sense movement in every direction and react to it accordingly. None of the shape-changing creatures – which, the heart enabled me to perceive, were mere shreds, off-shoots, of a single entity – could get near to me. The instant they displayed any threatening intent, they were extinguished. In conjunction with the heart I felt inviolable, invincible; I was giddy with exultation. In my heightened state I felt certain that if ever my life was threatened the heart would protect me, rescue me, and as such my fears and anxie
ties were pointless, redundant. My enemies were nothing; the Wolves of London were nothing. Try as they might they would be able neither to kill me nor separate me from the heart.
I strolled towards Frank’s wall of darkness. The candlelight spilled from the cage towards it, and was obliterated as effectively as a spill of black ink will obliterate the whiteness of a sheet of paper. The darkness was muscular, sinewy, a coiling, thrashing turmoil of despair and rage and terror. I sensed Clover shrinking from it, and extended the heart’s protection around her as an adult will curl a reassuring arm around a small child. I raised my hand and the darkness shrivelled back at my approach, forming an opening, a tunnel, through which I could pass. I kept on walking, Clover behind me, the heart not only lighting the way, but guiding my feet so that I felt almost as though I were gliding. In that exalted, rapturous moment I was certain that if only I could work out a way to control the heart, to gain mastery over it, then I could use it to seek out Kate, to go to her and take her back, crushing all opposition. In this mood I swept back along the tunnel, up the stairs, across the expanse of wooden floor and out of the building.
The instant I set foot beyond the rickety door through which Frank and I had entered the warehouse my rapture and self-confidence didn’t just dwindle, but nosedived. The cold and the darkness hit me like a train as the night sky swirled overhead, and my body was seized by a fit of feverish shivering and the most appalling stomach cramps I had ever experienced. I staggered forward, doubling over, nausea rushing through me. I heard Clover calling my name, her voice like a distant echo at the end of a long tunnel. I stumbled a couple more steps and then my legs collapsed under me and I fell. I vomited, convulsed, and everything went black.
TWENTY-THREE
SMOG
But only for a moment. Spurred by some instinct of self-preservation – or perhaps it was the heart giving me an extra nudge, warning me that I wasn’t out of the woods yet – I jerked from unconsciousness with a wild gasp, breaking the surface like a swimmer who’s gone deeper than he intended, and who’s left it just that bit too long before kicking towards the light.
For a split second I was disorientated, confused. I opened my eyes to see something hideous, perhaps even demonic, leaning over me. I felt sure the claw reaching towards me was about to rob me of both my hearts – the now-dormant one of black stone clenched in my fist and the still-beating one in my chest.
‘No!’ I yelled, flailing like a child, causing the demon to lurch back with a cry of shock. My senses wavered, settled, and suddenly I realised I was staring not at a demon, but at Clover’s shocked, round-eyed face. As for the claw which had been about to tear out my heart, I saw it was nothing but her pale, shaking hand hovering solicitously above my body.
‘Whoa,’ she said in a shaky voice. ‘Are you okay?’
I jerked my head in a nod, though in truth I felt terrible. I was shaking uncontrollably and pouring with sweat, my limbs full of broken glass, nausea sluicing through me in waves.
‘I’ll live,’ I muttered, and pedalled my legs in an attempt to climb to my feet. ‘We need to get out of here.’
Seeing me scrabbling like an upended turtle, Clover knelt down and slipped an arm around my back. ‘Let me help,’ she said, clenching her teeth as she hauled me upright.
‘Thanks,’ I muttered, though being vertical only made my head swim all the more. Clutching her free hand for support, and with her other arm around my sweat-drenched back, I bent double and abruptly threw up again, shuffling my feet apart just in time to avoid puking on my boots. Wretchedly I spat out a string of bilious, phlegm-thick drool. ‘Sorry,’ I muttered.
‘You’re my knight in shining armour,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to apologise.’
‘That’s me,’ I murmured. ‘Sir Pukealot.’ I took several deep breaths and slowly straightened up. ‘I think it’s true what you said.’
‘About what?’
‘About using the heart. That it takes its toll on me, makes me ill.’
She frowned. ‘As long as the effects aren’t cumulative.’
I thought about the way I had felt – invincible, even omnipotent – when under the heart’s influence. Nothing comes without a price, I thought. Maybe, if I used the heart too often, it would destroy me. Maybe even now the heart-energy was having an adverse and irreversible effect on my body. Maybe cells were mutating inside me, which would eventually lead to oedemas or tumours or God knows what else.
I pushed the thought from my head and concentrated on putting as much distance as possible between us and the thing in the basement. As Clover and I staggered along the riverside path and through the Isle of Dogs’ quiet residential streets, like passers-by fleeing the aftermath of a terrorist attack, I thought about Frank and hoped he’d be all right. I felt bad about leaving him behind, but back in the warehouse I had been guided by the heart, and had not given my companion’s welfare a second thought. Presumably the heart had its own agenda, and when it was active that effectively became my agenda too. I thought now about going back for him, but ashamed though it made me feel, I knew what a foolhardy venture that would be. The fact that walking willingly into a trap to rescue Clover had been equally foolhardy was neither here nor there. I tried to ease my conscience with the thought that Clover had been a helpless victim, whereas Frank had known what to expect and was able to look after himself. According to him, I had already brought him back from the dead, but that didn’t make me feel any better. It didn’t mean that his life was now mine to do with as I wished, and that I could therefore abandon him without a pang of conscience.
Even so, I didn’t go back. If I had done, maybe the heart would have helped me – though the way I was feeling, another blast of heart-energy so soon after the last one might well have finished me off. I stopped once more on the way to the station and puked in some bushes, and was concerned to see that there were streaks of blood in it. By the time we got on the train, though, my stomach had settled and I was feeling more like myself again. Exhausted, but less feverish, less nauseous.
Clover and I barely spoke as we took the DLR back into central London. She hadn’t yet mentioned my running out on her earlier. Maybe she would later, or maybe she thought I’d redeemed myself by rescuing her from McCallum.
No, not McCallum, I reminded myself. McCallum was dead. The thing that had used Clover as bait and tried to take the heart from us had been something new, something different, something that had the ability to look like McCallum – or, based on what I’d seen, anything else for that matter. A shape-shifter. An entity that could divide its body up and create an entire army of creatures out of its own… what? Flesh? Was such a thing composed of flesh? Or was it made of some other substance altogether?
I wondered how badly – if at all – I had wounded the thing by destroying some of its… creations with heart-energy. And again I wondered how Frank was coping, whether he was still alive.
I put my head back and closed my eyes. It had been a long night. Betrayed by Benny (was he still alive?), trapped by the Surgeon and his minions, rescued by Frank, lured into another trap by the shape-shifting thing… Was this really going to be my life from now on? I wondered whether the Surgeon and the shape-shifter were on the same side, whether they were both Wolves of London. The shape-shifter in the guise of McCallum had used a cane topped with a silver wolf’s-head. A joke? Or an indication of his status? The fact that the cane hadn’t been a cane at all, but part of the stuff of the shape-shifter suggested that here was a monster with a wicked sense of humour. But what did I know? As usual the questions far outnumbered the answers.
We changed trains at Bank, descending on to the Central Line platform, from where we’d catch the tube to Oxford Circus, and then get the Bakerloo Line to Paddington. Although all I wanted was my bed, I knew that once Clover and I got back to the hotel our best option would be to pack up our few belongings and leave. Perhaps the next hotel would be no safer than this one, perhaps the Wolves had so many fingers in so many
pies that they could track our movements every minute of every day, but at least I’d feel superficially safer in a different hotel. Trudging down the steps to the platform at Bank I once again scrutinised every face. I knew that any one of these people could be a potential threat, and that knowledge depressed me. Would I ever feel safe, or be able to trust anyone, ever again?
It was late, nearly midnight, and the platform was filled with late-night revellers. A bunch of girls in short skirts and deeley boppers were screeching like banshees; a tall, skinny man wearing a brown suit and glasses was spitting invective at a pretty black girl, who was stroking his chest and urging him to calm down. I took Clover’s arm and steered her away from the main throng, towards the end of the platform, where it was quieter. From the black arch of the tunnel came the distant squeal of metal and a smell like scorched dust. I glanced at the digital information board and saw that a train to Ealing Broadway would be along in two minutes.
Despite my previous conviction that the heart would always protect me, and that as long as it was in my possession I was invincible, I felt nervous, wary. Whenever the heart was dormant was when the doubts started to creep back in. Maybe it would protect me, but what was it doing to my body in the meantime? And was it really protecting me or simply using me, drawing on my energy, my life essence, to protect itself? Perhaps, when it had used me up, reduced me to a husk, it would move on, seek another host? Perhaps it was nothing but a parasite, intent only on self-preservation?
Beside me Clover coughed. I glanced at her. I was about to ask her if she was all right when I realised that our surroundings had gone a little hazy. I wondered whether the lights in the station were dimming, and then realised that a yellowish fog had crept on to the platform. Where had it come from? The tunnel? But even as I became aware of the fog, it grew thicker.
Clover coughed again. And suddenly I was coughing too, as the acrid-smelling mist caught in my throat. I wafted at it, but it became even darker and denser, obliterating my view of the other passengers further along the platform. It stifled the sound of their chatter, isolating Clover and me as it coiled around us. I bent double, spluttering, my eyes stinging. In my head I was thinking, Another attack! Pull yourself together! But it was easier said than done.