by Gavin Smith
He dropped the baguette he was eating and climbed out of the Range Rover. He didn’t like where she was heading, either. He thought about calling out to her but decided against it. She was an unknown factor now. He wondered how much she’d pulled the wool over his eyes. Instead he headed after her.
Beth hurried along the wall ignoring the pounding beat of the breakdancing crew entertaining the tourists. Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of the clown-masked dancers, standing on top of the van, throw a handful of glitter into the air. They were dancing to a hip-hop tune that sampled the old ‘Mr Sandman’ song.
Looking along Broad Street, she could make out the pubs ahead, the water and then Gosport. To her left the white sail-like Spinnaker Tower rose above Gunwharf. Beth came to a squat square tower attached to the defensive wall. She took the narrow steps down to street level.
It was called the Lighthouse and it was on the waterfront on Tower Street, which ran parallel with Broad Street. Du Bois stood on the Round Tower, which overlooked the Lighthouse. It was a large, four-storey, pseudo-art-deco luxury home with a small observation tower. A spiral staircase with large windows stuck out of the side of the house. He watched Beth hammer on the door at the bottom of the staircase. He watched a thug come out of the door to the third floor and head down the stairs.
The heavy opened the door an inch. Beth kicked it completely open with surprising strength, knocking him back, and then preceded to beat him with what looked like a pickaxe handle with a bike chain wrapped around it until he stopped moving.
Above Beth, du Bois watched another two of McGurk’s thugs appear on the staircase, one from the second floor, another from the third carrying a snooker cue. Both were wearing suits. Du Bois had to admit that for a shell-suit-wearing toerag, McGurk seemed to expect surprisingly high levels of sartorial elegance from his lackeys.
Beth could already hear the feet on the stairs thundering towards her. She was pretty sure that the guy who had answered the door was still alive as she stepped over him. She sprinted up the stairs, meeting the first guy immediately. He kicked out at her head. She ducked and swung the pickaxe handle at his supporting leg. She had hoped to hurt him enough to knock him off balance. Instead she heard the crack as bones fractured under the surprising force of her blow. He cried out as his leg collapsed. Beth grabbed his hair, dragged him out of the way and then continued up the stairs.
She ducked as someone swung a snooker cue at her so hard it broke when it hit the wall. Moving quickly up the stairs, she punched with her left. She was surprised when he doubled over. Even though she was wearing her brass knuckles, her left hand had always been the weaker one. She dragged him forward so he fell face first on the stairs. There was shouting above her. The heavy was still moving. She turned around, grabbed the railings for support and put the boot in until he lost interest in fighting.
First floor, open-plan kitchen, empty. Second floor, lounge area, nice view of a passing ferry, empty. Third floor, games room, snooker table, bar, another big window and McGurk with two of his boys on either side of him pointing guns at her. There were three more muscle in there: one had a snooker cue, one was using his thumb to open a folding knife, the third was unarmed. The black holes of the gun barrels brought her up short.
‘My fucking house! You come into my fucking home!’ The only emotion Beth could muster was disgust. McGurk was screaming so loudly he was drooling.
‘You came into mine,’ Beth told him, angry he was hiding behind guns.
‘I’m allowed to. I can do what I want in Pompey! You are fucking nothing!’
It seemed to Beth that people had been saying something similar to her all her life. She was starting to think it had more to do with them than her.
‘Where’s my sister?’ she said, quietly but unable to mask her distaste.
‘Do you know what I’m going to do?!’ he screamed.
‘Make an outlandish threat that you’ll never live up to?’ du Bois asked as he stepped into the room.
‘Shit!’ Beth said quietly and then moved to the side. The guns were suddenly pointed at du Bois, who raised his arms.
‘I’m just here to talk.’
McGurk looked du Bois up and down, taking in the raw patches of skin.
‘What happened to you? Disagreement with a strimmer?’ The laughter from McGurk’s cronies was forced. They knew their cues well. Du Bois looked a little apologetic. ‘You’re the plod that talked to Arbogast?’ McGurk said suspiciously. Du Bois nodded. ‘You armed?’ Du Bois nodded. ‘We’ll be having that, then. Markus.’ The unarmed guy that Beth recognised from her kidnapping, the one she’d stabbed in the leg, went over to search du Bois, who held his arms up higher to make it easier for the bodyguard to search him. Markus took the .45 and the tanto off him.
‘Careful with that,’ du Bois said, nodding at the .45. ‘Gift from a very grateful lieutenant in Delta Force.’
‘That supposed to impress us?’ McGurk demanded.
‘Apologies if you feel I’m name-dropping.’
‘What do you want?’ McGurk demanded.
‘Natalie Luckwicke.’
‘Don’t give her to him!’ Beth shouted. McGurk and du Bois were equally surprised by her outburst.
‘Shut up,’ McGurk told her. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about. Now can you think of any terribly compelling reason why I shouldn’t beat you both to death with my cane?’
‘Is that a bull’s cock cane?’ du Bois enquired.
‘Why, yes it is,’ McGurk said sarcastically.
‘You’re going to beat us to death with your cock substitute? Given your propensity for sodomising your employees –’ du Bois looked around at the five men with McGurk, none of whom would meet his eyes ‘– has it occurred to you that you’re a repressed homosexual and that you’ll be much happier if you admit it and just leave all this misguided rage behind?’
Beth was trying hard not to laugh.
‘Fuck you!’ There was more drool. ‘I’ve fucked every whore in this city, especially this cunt’s dead sister!’ Beth bristled, but one of the guns turned back towards her. She controlled herself with difficulty. The rage wasn’t red in colour any more; it was blue, cold, and seethed under her skin.
‘How admirable,’ du Bois said.
‘Do you think I won’t off plod?’ McGurk demanded. His men were looking a little nervous. After all, it would be one of them who pulled the trigger, and this was a large room with lots of glass in it. Another ferry was going past the window.
‘I don’t think he’s a repressed homosexual. I think he’s just a frightened little man,’ Beth said.
‘Fuck you, bitch!’
‘Where’d you get the servitor from?’ du Bois asked.
‘What? That fucked-up mutant thing?’
Du Bois sighed theatrically. ‘It’s as if Oscar Wilde never died for our sins.’
‘“With slouch and swing around the ring/ We trod the Fools’ Parade!/ We did not care: we knew we were/ The Devils’ Own Brigade:/ And shaven head and feet of lead/ Make a merry masquerade.” And fuck you, you patronising public-schoolboy wanker,’ McGurk said.
‘Good choice. Where’d you hear it?’ There was not trace of humour in du Bois’s voice.
‘Who the fuck d’you think you’re—’
The two shrouded, snub-nosed, suppressed .38 revolvers slid quickly out of the sleeves of du Bois’s finely tailored leather coat on forearm hoppers. Du Bois lowered his arm. The shots were barely louder than coughs. Neat red holes appeared in the centre of the foreheads of the three men holding guns. All of them stood there for a moment and then toppled to the ground. Nobody moved. Beth looked appalled at the people she had just seen die in front of her. She looked down at Markus, feeling faintly nauseous that she actually knew the guy’s name. It wasn’t like when she’d killed Davey; there was only cold calculation from du Bois. He shifted his position to cover McGurk with one revolver. The other vaguely covering his two remaining men.
‘
Beth, would you mind getting my pistol and my knife?’ du Bois asked. Beth glanced at him and then bent down and picked up the .45 from the floor near where Markus had dropped it. She did not give it back to du Bois.
‘You know how to use that?’ he asked. Beth ignored him and put the gun in the pocket of her battered leather.
‘What do you guys want?’ McGurk asked cautiously.
‘The same thing we wanted before I shot your friends. Obviously,’ du Bois said.
‘As far as I know, the girl’s dead. She died when her house blew up. You must have seen it on the telly. The mutant thing, a friend of mine found it in a basement.’
‘Where?’
‘I don’t know, down near the front in Southsea.’
‘Now where’s the girl?’
‘I told you: she’s fucking dead and causing me no end of grief while she’s at it.’
‘I have considerably less compunction in shooting low-rate rapist plastic gangsters than you do police officers. It would behove you to answer my question or I’ll start with your kneecaps.’
‘You can’t get all of us—’
Beth walked forward, grabbed the cane out of McGurk’s hand and laid into him with a ferocity that made du Bois take a step back.
‘WHERE’S MY SISTER?! WHERE’S MY SISTER?! WHERE’S MY SISTER?! WHERE’S MY SISTER?!’
McGurk was battered, bleeding, sobbing in pain and fear and had wet himself a long time before Beth realised that he now really wanted to tell her where Talia was. She stopped beating him. She was still shaking with rage. Curled up in a foetal position, he told her. One of the muscle gave them directions.
‘Remember everything he’s ever done to you,’ Beth told the two thugs. ‘Who wants the stick?’ Then she threw the bloodstained bull penis on the floor, turned and walked out.
With a thought the two .38s slid back up du Bois’s sleeves on their hoppers. He picked up his tanto, sheathed it and followed Beth.
She was waiting for him around the corner just past the second floor, pointing his own .45 at him. Du Bois was moving to the side as soon as he saw the gun. As he was higher than her he risked a kick, sending the .45 spinning from her fingers. Beth didn’t hesitate either. She was as surprised as du Bois was at how fast she ripped her great-grandfather’s bayonet from her inside pocket and stabbed it up through du Bois’s arm as he reached for her.
Du Bois screamed as the force of her blow pushed the tip of the bayonet through his nano-fabric-armoured leather coat and then through his hardening skin. He kicked out forward, hard. His foot caught Beth centre mass in the chest, lifted her up off her feet and sent her flying the rest of the way down the stairs and into the wall at the bottom. She slumped to the floor but started moving again almost immediately. Du Bois was appalled at how highly augmented she was. He did not understand how he could have missed this. He leaped down the stairs, his foot smashing her in the head so hard it cracked the plaster behind it. She was still moving towards him despite the blood oozing from her head. In desperation he triggered the hopper on his left arm, pointing the .38 that slid out at her.
‘Girl, I have been killing for centuries!’ Either this or the gun made Beth stop. That made no sense either. If he shot her the bullets would hurt, they might even incapacitate her, but unless they were coated with nanites or carried a nanite payload that counteracted how quickly her own obviously high-level nanite augmentation could heal her, then she would be fine. It was as if she didn’t know this. ‘Why attack me? Broadly speaking, I’m on your side.’ He wondered if she knew that less than twenty-four hours ago he’d killed her father. Yesterday he would have said no, but then yesterday he had been sure that Beth was a normal girl – for a violent ex-con from Bradford.
Beth glared at him. Du Bois tried to ignore the sound of bad things happening to McGurk above. She wondered if anyone had called the police yet.
‘Seriously, talk to me. I don’t want to hurt you or your sister, quite the opposite really.’ Then it hit him. ‘Are you from the Brass City?’ He didn’t think her look of confusion was faked. She had no idea what he was talking about. ‘The Eggshell?’ More confusion.
‘My father told me what you are,’ she told him.
He didn’t happen to mention what you are, du Bois thought. ‘And what’s that?’
‘You’re in some kind of cult. You bred her for sacrifice.’
Du Bois stared at her. Then he started laughing. Then he sat down on the stairs but kept the gun on her.
‘And you believed that?’ he asked, still laughing.
‘Everything’s a bit fucking weird!’ Beth snapped at him, less than happy that he was laughing at her, and her head hurt, quite a lot, she could feel it moving of its own accord, mending itself, though she was starting to feel really hungry again.
Du Bois thought about it. The truth was arguably odder.
‘Do you know, I almost see where he got that from,’ du Bois admitted.
‘Well, what do you want her for?’
‘It’s true she was part of a selective breeding and genetic manipulation programme. She and many other children were born to have their genetic material harvested, but we weren’t going to kill them, just take samples while they lived privileged lives.’
‘And where are these children now?’ Beth asked. Du Bois thought about lying. Instead he lit a cigarette and tried to ignore the horrific noises from upstairs.
‘They’re all dead.’ Beth started to say something. ‘No, we didn’t do it. To all intents and purposes they were wiped out in a terrorist attack. That’s why we need your sister.’
Beth wanted to believe him. Her instincts were to trust him, but she didn’t feel she could risk it, not when she was so close.
‘I’m taking my sister and we’re going,’ she told him.
‘Something’s coming. Talia is very important, and you’d both be better off coming with me.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I don’t have to have this discussion, Beth. I can take her any time
I want. You don’t even know how to kill me. Trust me.’
‘Would sawing your head off with a World War One bayonet do it?’ she asked.
It might, du Bois thought. ‘I don’t think you’ve got that in you.’
‘You get between me and Talia, we’ll find out,’ she told him evenly.
Du Bois looked at her through the pall of his cigarette smoke. He took another drag. He made his decision. Beth just would not stop going after her sister. She had more will and courage than the entire ruling council of the Circle put together.
‘Fine, but they’ll send others like me after you,’ he told her. To hell with the Circle. ‘And I’m taking some samples from her before we go our separate ways.’ Beth opened her mouth to object. ‘I’m probably going to get killed for this, so no more arguments.’ He stood up and downloaded the route to where McGurk had said Talia was directly into his mind. It was very close. Du Bois supposed McGurk had wanted to keep her nearby. ‘And give me my gun back. It really was a present.’
‘No.’
Du Bois was not sure why he was surprised it was a lock-up. His ability to quote Wilde notwithstanding, McGurk had been a small-minded man. Du Bois let Beth handle the man guarding her sister. He heard bones crack under her fist. He was a little worried that she’d hit him so hard she’d killed him.
Talia was lying on a hospital trolley being fed with a drip and apparently giving blood. She was no longer a pale waif-like beauty; she looked gaunt and near-dead.
Beth rushed to the side of the trolley.
‘Talia!’ Her sister was unconscious.
Du Bois immediately began checking her vitals. She was okay but suffering from constant sedation and enforced bed rest. Her breathing was a little shallow and she was probably malnourished, but her pulse was fine.
‘What are they doing to her?’ Beth demanded, more distraught than he’d heard her so far.
‘At a guess, they’re using her blood as some kind of
hallucinogenic narcotic.’ Beth looked at him like he was mad. He left out that he thought her blood coming into contact with some kind of sensitive mind was probably the reason Talia’s house had been destroyed and all those people had died in the nightclub.
He produced a leather case from his jacket and removed a number of vials from it. He placed a few against her skin and two in her mouth.
‘What are you doing?’ Beth demanded, reaching for the gun as the vials grew needles and started drawing blood. The ones in her mouth took scrapings. Talia was starting to stir. ‘Don’t you think she’s lost enough blood?’
‘This is our agreement,’ du Bois said in a tone that did not invite argument. ‘I’ll be out of your life soon.’
Beth looked like she was going to object again as he rolled Talia onto her side. She moaned and then cried out in pain as du Bois pressed one of the vials into the base of her spine.
‘She’s going to need medical help,’ du Bois told her. Which is probably where the next person the Circle send will find you, he left unsaid. ‘I can drop you where you choose. Then you’ll never see me again.’ Because I’ll be dead, he thought as he took the final vial away and let Talia drop down onto her back.
‘Beth?’ Talia said woozily. Beth looked at her, tears springing into her eyes. Du Bois wished that they had more of a future, but he wasn’t sure that any of them did. ‘I’ve been having really bad dreams, Beth.’
Beth looked at du Bois, who moved to pick Talia up. Beth grabbed him by the arm to stop him. She wrapped the sheets around Talia and then lifted her light form off the trolley herself. Du Bois unhooked her from the drip.
Beth carried Talia, who was fading in and out of consciousness, as du Bois led the way across Broad Street past the break-dancing crew. As they passed the dancers, the music changed to that of some pop song that du Bois vaguely remembered from the 80s. As it did, he heard the sound of many people stamping their feet on the ground in unison. It was a sound that wouldn’t have been out of place on a parade ground. Du Bois and Beth both glanced behind them. They were surprised to see all the tourists standing to attention in neat rows and staring at them. Then, in time with the music, old and young alike started dancing towards them, clicking their fingers. The break-dancers in the clown masks were nowhere to be seen.