by Heide Goody
Vivian could see on the internal and external monitors that the roller door had not risen high enough. The door buckled loudly and the top deck of the bus smashed apart, the roof peeling back like a banana skin. The battered lower half of the National Express double decker rammed into a set of industrial shelves and sent them toppling.
Zildrohar-Cqulu whirled in the carnage, ripping shelves apart, batting pallets away and generally adding to the chaos rather than escaping it.
On another monitor, a chocolate-coated figure shuffled rapidly but clumsily along the corridor.
“Where are you going, Miss Murray?” said Vivian.
Morag stopped, turned to the CCTV camera, waved her phone about and then pointed repeatedly at the camera. Vivian had no idea what that particular pantomime meant.
“I’m in the security office on the ground floor, along the corridor from the factory reception,” she said.
The chocolate figure shuffled on.
Shelves fell. Chocolate rained from the heights. Rod knew that chocolate was bad for the health but, for once, he admitted there was a very real danger of it being the death of him. While Zildrohar-Cqulu battled falling shelving and a constantly shifting floor of discarded chocolate, Rod ran to the bus. The front end was buried deep in a compact pile of steel struts and plywood shelving so he hoisted himself up and through one of the broken windows further back. He dashed to the front of the bus. “Nina!”
A groan from the driver’s cab told him that she was at least still alive.
“I hurt.”
Glass crunched under his boots. A miasma of smoke, faint but thickening, filled the air. He shoved a metal stanchion aside.
“You drove a bus into a chocolate factory,” he replied.
“And how many people can say that?” grunted Nina.
He levered a shelving board away and there she was. There was glass and chocolate everywhere and the cab was severely buckled around her but there was no blood.
“Want,” he said, putting a hand to her cheek and checking her pupils. “How many people would want to say that?”
She held her right arm in her left. There was an ugly looking bend in her right forearm where there really shouldn’t have been one. “Can you move your head?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you feel any nausea? No? Can you feel your legs? Yes?”
She nodded. “I’d like to get off the bus now, please,” she said.
“Okay,” said Rod. “I’m going to hook my arms under yours and pull you out.”
“Hang on,” she quickly stuffed a handful of chocolate bars down her blouse.
“Really?”
“YOLO.”
Rod leaned in and took hold of her – she really was a tiny itty bit of a woman – and gently hauled her out. She winced and gasped each time her broken arm was jolted.
“You know,” he said. “YOLO is just carpe diem for people who can’t spell.”
“I thought carpe diem was just foreign for ‘fish of the day’.”
He slipped her legs over the lip of the cab and assisted her to the back of the bus and the emergency exit.
“Why would I have a tattoo on my arm that says fish of the day?”
“I dunno,” she shrugged. “Thought it was an army thing.”
He looked at her.
“You’re definitely not concussed?” He pulled the emergency door lever and half-led half-carried her out.
“Shit, my phone,” said Nina. “I need my phone.”
“Priorities.” Rod pulled her away from the diesel fuel that was pooling around the bus. “I’ll get you a new one.”
“But it’s got the file on it.”
There was an abrupt moment of silence. Rod looked up. Up in the rafters, Zildrohar-Cqulu’s head, itself as big as an elephant – how did he get so big? – was looking directly at them.
“Bugger,” said Rod.
The Venislarn horror screamed, a noise that went beyond the merely animalistic into intelligent and purposeful hatred. Like a hooked barb, it penetrated his mind, his psyche, and pierced deep into his need to conform, to obey and to seek forgiveness.
Beside him, Nina was fervently muttering prayers.
With Zildrohar-Cqulu’s scream-command inside him, Rod couldn’t comprehend why there would be any need for prayer; the will of his god was clear and evident to him. Zildrohar-Cqulu demanded an act of atonement. He had wronged his god and he would have to pay. A sacrifice would have to be made. Zildrohar-Cqulu’s biting truth had carved all doubt from his mind, excised it like a tumour. All was bright and clear now.
A sacrifice would have to be made…
He put a hand on Nina’s shoulder. “Per Yo-Zildrohar, me-asqh pas pherri khor llang’xi.”
She paused in her prayers and looked at him with suddenly narrowed eyes. “Since when did you speak – Oh, muda!” She tried to pull away but Rod held her with gentle and implacable hands.
“Don’t be scared,” he said.
“This girl ain’t scared of nothing,” she spat back.
Easily ignoring her struggles, he placed a hand on her neck and pressed his thumb into her windpipe. She kicked against him. He twisted her broken arm. Her scream was a squealing gargle that vibrated against his tightening fingertips. It felt good to experience her so closely. Rod felt a sudden desire to open her up and know her insides.
“You will be assured a place in his kingdom,” he told her.
Nina thrashed and clawed at his jacket. Rod paid it no mind. Her pain was temporary and could not be compared to the eternal glory in which she would soon reside.
Purple-faced, she held up his pistol and put it to the bridge of his nose. She had snatched it from his holster. Sneaky. The natural instinct to survive made him hesitate. He released his grip for a moment.
“Don’t make me,” Nina croaked.
Zildrohar-Cqulu padded towards them and snarled his encouragement. Of course, she must die, Rod realised. There was no point in getting squeamish when the rewards of service were so close at hand.
As he closed his grip about her again, music started to play from the PA speakers. It sounded like organ music although there was no melody, merely a succession of arpeggios and chords. It was an immediate distraction, its meaningless progressions cutting between the clarity in his mind and the reality of his actions. The gun was still pointed straight at his face.
He struggled to regain his focus. Why didn’t she shoot him? Didn’t he need to kill her? Where was his lord, Zildrohar-Cqulu?
He turned to look for his master. Zildrohar-Cqulu stood still and – Rod had to take a second look – he was shrinking.
“Yo-Zildrohar?”
The butt of the pistol slammed against his temple and, in a fleeting instant of unconsciousness, he lost his grip on the sacrifice. She stamped against his knee as she fell back and he fell too.
Rod gave no attention to the physical pain. His connection with the god was receding. He tried to reach for it and draw it back to him but it was like grasping at fog. The music was sending his god from him. Rod shook his head at himself in disgust. His god?
The foul Venislarn was drawing in on itself, returning to the size it had been in the cargo container. It was almost lost to sight now, no higher than the piles of confectionery that it had brought down around it.
Vivian watched Zildrohar-Cqulu shrink and become still on the screen. Morag’s phone next to the PA microphone continued to play the file Nina had sent her.
“It worked,” she said.
“The Invertible Hymn of Sanq’hu, inverted,” said Morag. “Or played backwards.”
“A lucky guess.”
“A lucky guess saves the day.”
Vivian looked warily at her colleague and at the patchy layers of chocolate that still clung to her. “You may be tempted to hug me now or offer me a high five,” said Vivian. “Don’t.”
“We won,” grinned Morag. “This is our moment of victory.”
“And this is Marks and
Spencer,” said Vivian, touching her suit jacket. “Don’t.”
Smiling had cracked the chocolate on Morag’s face. She peeled off a strip and popped it in her mouth.
The police and fire crews all looked a little lost and unsure what to do. They had attended what was obviously a serious incident. There had been thunderous crashes, smashed windows and hints of fire but they had been given firm instructions to hold back and not intervene. Eventually, bored, they fell back on old favourites. The police bossed passing traffic around and told onlookers to keep back. The firefighters chatted up the prettiest of the onlookers and made unnecessary references to hoses and helmets.
The ambulance crews looked almost smug when four survivors made their slow way down the driveway and gave them something to do. Two of them needed no treatment. The older woman seemed perfectly untouched and there wasn’t really any treatment the NHS could offer the redheaded woman for a chocolate gunking. The paramedics all but leapt upon the giant man with a bloodied forehead and obviously twisted ankle, and the petite woman with a broken arm.
From beyond the police cordon, Vaughn Sitterson approached Morag and Vivian, which was a peculiar thing to watch because, as a rule, he was clearly opposed to approaching or looking at anything directly. He approached them as though he was simply walking in their general direction and their presence was merely coincidental. He looked past them to the Cadbury’s chocolate factory.
“This was a planned event?” he asked.
“Luring a wakened god into a chocolate factory, ramming it with a bus and sending it to sleep with a backwards lullaby?” said Morag. “No.”
“I like to be aware of incidents before they happen,” he said, apparently addressing the sky.
“Including unforeseeable incidents?”
“Especially those,” he said.
“I would be the same,” said Vivian.
“I think you should write the report on this one, Mrs Grey,” said Vaughn.
Vivian nodded as though she had been given a singular honour. “We will need a clean-up crew to contain Zildrohar-Cqulu. I will ask Yo-Morgantus what he would have us do with him,” she said.
“I gather Yo-Morgantus is incensed that another god of power came into his city without notification and would rather we sent Zildrohar-Cqulu to the furthest and coldest ends of the earth.”
“Hull, then,” said Vivian. “There is also the matter of the Nadirian. We found it.”
“I know,” said Vaughn, trying to sound superior and knowledgeable but unable to hide a certain sheepishness.
“If I wasn’t so tired and covered in chocolate, I would slap you sideways,” said Morag. “You put me in there as a canary.”
“And you survived,” he pointed out.
“Well,” she said, “then I guess that deserves a pay rise.”
“In these times of austerity and budget cuts?” he said. “At best, we can offer you alternative accommodation. Nothing as pleasant, I should imagine, but guaranteed to be devoid of Venislarn.”
“Another time,” she said. “I’ve got a daft neighbour to check on and I’m definitely going home to get out of these clothes.”
“We could offer you a ride,” said Vaughn, gesturing to the unmarked car he had come in.
“It’s okay,” said Morag, waddling uncomfortably toward the uCab that had just pulled up. “Got my own ride.”
Nina and Rod sat side by side in the rear of the ambulance while the paramedics assessed their injuries.
“Ingrid was right,” said Nina.
“Was she?” said Rod.
“You. You went all Sean Bean back there. Like in Lord of the Rings when he went all mad and tried to kill Frodo.”
“And you would be – what? – the tiny little hobbit person with hairy feet I tried to kill?”
“I have beautiful feet,” she said.
“Thank you though,” he said. “For not shooting me.”
She shrugged and winced as she jolted her arm.
“Couldn’t kill you. You promised to buy me a new phone.”
He thought on this.
“Aye. Sounds fair,” he said eventually.
When the taxi stopped outside 27 Franklin Road, Morag had to peel herself away from the seat, leaving behind a whole-body chocolate imprint.
“You might need to get your god to clean that up for you,” she told the taxi driver and got out. She looked up at the sub-divided house. There were lights on in Richard’s ground floor flat. Her own flat was in darkness, as she had left it. There was a faint light from the second floor, a low glow through the mouldy curtains.
She made her plans as she walked in chocolate trousers up to the front door: strip, put the clothes in the washing machine (along with the two other soiled outfits she had put in there earlier in the week), actually put the washing machine on, get a shower, check that Richard hadn’t done something as stupid as awaken or feed himself to the Nadirian, sleep or not sleep, then get the hell out of Dodge…
She barely had the key in the lock when the door was pulled open.
“You took your time,” said Ingrid.
Morag looked at the wand in Ingrid’s hand.
“I thought Nina threw you off a balcony,” said Morag.
“Yes, that hurt,” said Ingrid. “It really did hurt.”
Morag noticed that Ingrid was slightly bent, hunched, as though she really wanted to curl up.
“Got some broken ribs and that’s not put me in a good mood,” said Ingrid. “What’s that stuff on you?”
“Chocolate,” said Morag.
“I won’t ask. Which one’s your apartment?”
“Upstairs.”
Ingrid waggled the wand for Morag to lead. Morag sidled past her and up the stairs.
“Slower,” grunted Ingrid behind her, taking the steps with difficulty.
Morag considered lashing out backwards with her foot but she had seen what a wand of guirz’ir binding could do when fully employed and did not want to contemplate what would happen if her kick missed.
Morag opened the door to flat two. Ingrid prodded her inside. Morag turned on the lights.
There was an August Handmaiden of Prein in her front room. More specifically, it was Shardak’aan Syu, the mistress and lover of Drew.
Morag must have been tired, because her first emotional response was to be impressed rather than terrified. The handmaiden had to squat a little to not scrape the eight-foot ceiling. Her armoured body and arched legs stretched from the front window to the beginning of the dining area. If the Venislarn were forced to obey the laws of space and time, they would have had to remove the front wall of the house to get her in.
“Kos-kho bhul!” swore Ingrid in surprise. “Who’s that?”
Jagged armour plates shifted and rode across the handmaiden’s body. A screaming baby face of porcelain came round to face them.
“Who is this little thing?” said the handmaiden in beautiful and precise tones.
Morag marshalled her thoughts rapidly. She felt a little giddy to be caught entirely between a rock and a hard place. A very, very hard place.
“Shardak’aan Syu of the August Handmaidens of Prein,” she said, “may I present Dr Ingrid Spence, a colleague of mine from Birmingham consular mission to the Venislarn. Ingrid, her ladyship Shardak’aan Syu, who I guess is here to exact revenge for me killing her sister on Sunday in Edinburgh.”
The handmaiden’s plates rotated angrily. “Murderer. You tricked me into offering a poisoned tribute to Yo-Morgantus.”
“No one to blame but yourself for that,” said Morag.
“You will pay, small human.”
Ingrid held forth her wand. “I warn you, I’m armed,” she told the Venislarn.
The handmaiden shifted and twitched, positioning her body to perceive the wand better. “This one is mine,” said the handmaiden.
“Not today, she isn’t,” said Ingrid. “You need to leave, sa vei-Prein.”
The handmaiden ground its plates together
and brought its claws forward.
“You should not defy me.”
“And on any other day…” said Ingrid.
Both the handmaiden and the doctor held their positions. Morag, although directly between them, was almost completely ignored.
“I was this close to her,” Morag said to the handmaiden. “I had startled her. I wasn’t even looking for her. I just happened to have the gun in my hands.”
“Shut up, Morag,” said Ingrid.
“I turned. She reared. I put both barrels in her mouth. I didn’t even know her name.”
The handmaiden growled and rose up as much as the ceiling would allow.
Ingrid twisted the wand. An invisible wrecking ball smacked into the handmaiden and pushed her back against the wall, smashing plaster and IKEA art prints. It wasn’t enough. The August Handmaiden of Prein propelled herself at the two women, the circular and pink-toothed mouth in her belly wide open to consume them. Ingrid twisted the wand again. This time, the wrecking ball not only picked the creature up but powered straight through her, nearly destroying the wall with shards of exploded alien royalty. The largest fragment of shell bounced off the wall and rocked around on the floor. One of her amputated legs twitched and was still.
“Boom,” said Morag softly. “Just like that.”
“You got any more mortal enemies hiding in here?” said Ingrid. She sounded tired, so very close to collapse.
“No,” said Morag. “Do you mind telling me what you want with me?”
“The Nadirian,” said Ingrid. “I know it’s here.”
“What do you want with the Nadirian?”
Ingrid gave her a sour look. “You have deprived me of one incursion.”
“Did you not see what that god did to the chocolate factory? We had a serious incursion, no mistake.”
Ingrid shook her head. “I’m considering this Plan B. Where is it?”
“Top floor,” said Morag.
“Good, then you’re going to wake it and –”
“What’s going on here?” said Richard from the doorway. “It sounded like an explosion.”
Ingrid turned, wand in hand.
“Don’t hurt him!” said Morag.