Desolation

by Tim Lebbon

  He found it easy to slip into Whistler’s flat. The piper was standing at his bedroom window staring out at the dusk, but Cain was not there for him. He crept into the room named for “The Followers” and closed the door behind him.

  The difference was immediately apparent. The creatures still looked dead and stuffed, but there was a subtle sound playing on Cain’s ears, almost too low to hear. The sound of movement. Muscles stretching, bones creaking, dried pelts whispering as unaccustomed shifting affected the whole room. He turned the corner and stared at the fox and chicken, and over a couple of minutes he saw the two of them move a minute amount. It was like watching the hour hand of a clock—movement obvious, yet not visible. The fox’s jaws closed slightly, the chicken’s head fell more to one side, and the flow of spilled blood widened and spread across the floor like melted wax.

  Cain turned the final corner and saw the woman in the chair. She was not Magenta. She seemed to be in exactly the same position as when he had last seen her, but her eyes had shifted to the right as if still following him from the room. He leaned in close and listened at her nose and mouth, but there were no signs of breathing. He waved his hand in front of her face, but of course she would have seen nothing anyway. Even in his new state, he did not wish to touch her.

  Cain watched for a few minutes. Her eyes did not change. Her chest did not expand to bring in air. But over that time, her mouth opened and closed almost imperceptibly. Wherever she existed now, she was gasping at something both profound and amazing.

  That night, Cain went out. He moved through the streets, flitting from shadow to shadow, listening to people whisper sweet nothings, flicking their hair, a goose walking over their graves.

  He breathed on one girl’s neck and made her turn around, seconds before she would have stepped into the path of a joyrider. She walked on, unnerved, never to know that her life had been saved.

  In a shop doorway he found a mugger, scoping his victims and heading out only when he spied a teenager on his own. Cain tripped the mugger and sent him sprawling. The teenager glanced across the street and hurried away from the man, who seemed drunk. The mugger tried to rise, but Cain sat on his back, whispering into his ear, “I’ll be watching, I’ll be watching.” When Cain finally stood, the man scrambled to his feet and sprinted off down the street, looking around wildly, all thoughts of theft and assault purged from his mind.

  In a car park there were a couple having sex in an open-top car. Inviting discovery obviously added to their thrill, but they carried on unaware of Cain standing beside the driver’s door. He hated that, but he also loved it. He had become so different.

  That night, he followed a murderer home and planted evidence on his clothing. He closed an open window just as a burglar was about to climb through, and gave the boy a shove into a spiky rosebush for good measure. And as dawn began to bring the city to life, Cain’s shadow moved across the eyes of a sleeping child, driving away a nightmare that would have marked her day.

  Cain had always felt unnoticed, and now that was truly the case. He was a man with a future. He had found his Way, and if he could learn to live with that, the possibilities were endless.