by Unknown
‘Michael.’ She looked not just serious now, but grim. ‘There are things you don’t know, about that area, about me. I’d have told you before but I wasn’t sure. Now I am. Please don’t go back.’
‘I have to. Look, I’m sorry.’ He started to trot back the way he’d come, apprehension rising in his throat. What if he missed the meeting? What if this meant the end?
For a moment his feet slowed, then he ran towards a taxi.
His phone beeped. He grabbed it, expecting Nigel, but the message was from Shanny.
Lowes. They make arms. I looked it up.
PLEASE be careful.
S
xx
Arms? For a moment he had a surreal mental image of a warehouse full of them, neatly stacked, fingers flexing.
But that wasn’t what she meant, of course.
He looked at the xx. Put his phone away, paid the cab and skidded through reception and stood in the lift, panting and combing his hair with his fingers as the doors shut. Something on the floor of the lift caught his eye; a scrap of blue.
It reminded him of something. He toed it.
About an inch of blue leather, with a round notch out of one side. Part of a strap. Probably someone’s handbag had broken. Yet on impulse, he bent down, picked it up, and shoved it in his pocket just as the lift doors opened.
‘Michael.’
‘Nigel.’ He noticed Nigel had a bandage around his hand. ‘What happened to you?’
‘Nothing important. This way.’
The meeting room was a big, cold space, the walls ice-white, the oval table a lake of shining darkness with a battered black-leather presentation box lying on it like a small ancient boat.
The three men seated at the table managed to fill the space. Nigel. Jack. The Senior Director, a man Michael had seldom met; thick-shouldered as a bull, with patrician cheekbones and hairy silver eyebrows over pale blue eyes.
‘Take a seat, Michael,’ the Senior Director said. ‘We want to have a chat about your future with the firm.’
‘Right,’ Michael said. ‘Sorry, I wasn’t … expecting this.’
‘That’s quite all right. I hope we didn’t make you miss your lunch, but the timing’s important.’
‘Timing?’
‘Yes.’ The Senior Director leaned back in his chair. ‘You see, there are things you need to know about the firm. We’ve been watching you. Of course you came highly recommended, and of a good bloodline. These things aren’t always as significant as people think, but it can certainly help.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’
‘The firm has entered certain contracts. In return for favours, we get favours. Quid pro quo, and all that.’
‘Is this to do with Lowes?’
‘Not specifically, that would be more a proof of your commitment to the firm. But things have reached a bit of a crisis point, and it would be better, we thought, to kill two birds with one stone. Deal with the current crisis, move your career to the next stage.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t…’ Michael said.
‘Better to simply show you, perhaps.’ The Senior Director got up, and pointed a small remote at an alcove.
A door Michael never knew was there swung open.
The Senior Director picked up the presentation box and tucked it under his arm. ‘Follow me,’ he said.
‘What’s going on?’ Michael whispered to Nigel. ‘I don’t understand any of this!’
‘You will,’ Nigel said.
They walked along a long corridor that sloped consistently downwards. The walls were painted a soft green, which, after they’d walked for a good twenty minutes, gave way to white tile. Footsteps were snapping towards them along an adjoining corridor.
‘Where are we?’ Michael said. ‘This looks like the underground.’
‘It is,’ said a familiar voice.
‘Pops?’
‘Important occasion,’ his father said, emerging from the corridor. ‘George here,’ he motioned at the Senior Director, ‘was kind enough to invite me along.’
‘But what is the occasion?’ Michael said, striving to keep his voice casual. His brain was buzzing, the hairs on the back of his neck were crawling. His hand crept to his pocket and fingered the scrap of blue leather. He spent his days looking for patterns.
That scrap of blue is a bit of a dog-collar, isn’t it?
We’re Going Underground. The Jam. Came out around the same time as Making Plans for Nigel. They’re Making Plans for Michael…
‘There’s something wrong with Bank…’
Nigel and Pops either side of him, Jack behind, like an escort. Or sheepdogs. Down and down and down.
Something bit Nigel.
‘There’s something I need to tell you, about the area, about me…’
This was a pattern. This was a story.
But although he had some of it, by the time they reached the place where the corridor opened out, he still wasn’t prepared for what he actually saw.
It was a huge vaulted space. Old-fashioned electric wall-lights in iron cages cast a pallid light. The white tiles disappeared upwards into a darkness of shifting dirt-thickened cobwebs and breathing vents.
The floor sloped down slightly towards the middle, where there was a hole. An iron frame stood in front of it. Strapped to the frame was the boy he’d seen on the station platform, his arms and legs outstretched like the famous Leonardo Da Vinci sketch of proportions. His head hung forward, lank hair hiding his face.
‘What is this?’ Michael said, his voice sounding far away. Don’t, for fuck’s sake, faint.
‘The next step,’ the Senior Director said. ‘Think of it as a test of initiative.’
‘So what am I supposed to do?’ Michael said.
The Senior Director handed him the presentation case.
He opened it.
The knife lay on a bed of worn blue velvet. A smooth black handle, a thin, slightly curved blade. It looked very sharp.
‘He’s drugged, of course,’ the Senior Director said.
‘Nothing new for him then,’ said Jack.
‘Just lightly,’ the Senior Director said. ‘Too much isn’t …approved.’
‘So I … what … cut his throat?’ Michael said.
‘Any of the major arteries will do, but that’s traditional,’ said the Senior Director. ‘Then you just turn that handle on the side of the frame there, and it lies back over the hole.’
Michael, feeling unreal, turned and looked at the frame. He could see the handle, the ratchet arrangement, the way it worked, with a feverish clarity. He could see the boy’s wrists, skinny and pathetic between the straps and his ragged sleeves.
‘Feeding the homeless,’ he said, hearing the jag of hysteria in his voice. ‘I see. To what?’
‘Hah, yes,’ the Senior Director said. ‘We’re not sure. Mammon, possibly. It doesn’t really matter, does it? After all, it works.’
‘And the current crisis?’
‘Required we step things up, at least in terms of numbers. So the charity initiative really helped there.’
‘Why this, though?’ Michael gestured at the knife, which he hadn’t yet been able to bring himself to touch. ‘Why not just … drop them down the hole?’
‘Really, Michael,’ his father said. ‘It’s the willingness. Proving you’ve got the stuff.’ Don’t let me down, Michael, he could hear it in the voice, see it in the eyes as he had all his life. Don’t let me down. Stop wasting your time with painting. Stop arguing with me. Just murder this boy in cold blood and do as you’re told and you’ll be mine once and for all, Stuart Forbes-Lathrop’s son, a chip off the old block…
‘And of course if you can’t,’ Nigel said, and glanced significantly at the hole. ‘Sorry,’ he said to the Senior Director. ‘Just thought I’d mention it.’
The Senior Director gestured graciously. ‘Well of course, you’ve always kept an eye out for him. Only to be expected.’
‘Appreciated your efforts t
here, Nigel,’ Stuart Forbes-Lathrop said. ‘Wanted you to know that.’
‘Thank you, Sir,’ Nigel said.
Michael took the knife. He walked towards the frame. As he got closer he could smell the aroma coming from the hole, thick and meaty.
The boy looked unconscious, head drooping, his eyes shut. Michael’s heart was pounding in his ears so hard he wondered if the others could hear it. He saw a sooty cobweb drift down past the boy’s head and writhe frantically in a sudden updraft of warm, fetid air.
Assumptions. Everyone made assumptions. About other people. About their place in the world.
Please let the knife be as sharp as it looks, don’t let me have to saw with it. He was close enough now to smell the boy. He realised that the thin chest under the filthy t-shirt was rising and falling rapidly.
Not that drugged, or maybe resistant.
They’d made assumptions about Michael, too.
He dropped, slashed at the first of the ankle straps. Thank fuck, the knife was sharp, the straps taut. He cut the second.
‘Michael!’ His father’s voice, yanking like a leash. He leaped up, cut the first of the wrist-straps. The boy swung forward, hanging from a single strap, and gasped, eyes opening wide. The frame creaked.
Michael swayed aside just in time for Jack to miss him, and cannon into the side of the frame. Roaring, Jack bounced off, landed on his backside.
Four of them. Fuck, I wish I’d done martial arts. He glanced around frantically.
Nigel was advancing purposefully, shooting his cuffs, as though he were getting ready to play snooker. Pops was looking at him, shaking his head. The Senior Director looked faintly irritated.
Michael looked up, caught a glimpse of something moving. More cobwebs floated down.
Jack slammed into him, pressing him against the frame. ‘Mikey-boy, you’re being a dickhead,’ he said, panting. ‘It’s not too late. Do the little shit and everything will be fine.’
‘You’ve done it?’
‘’Course I have,’ Jack said.
Maybe he saw something in Michael’s eyes change. His own face went cold. He glanced over his shoulder at Nigel, and shrugged.
‘What a waste,’ Nigel said. ‘Really, Michael.’
That was when the boy’s free arm and legs flailed out and wrapped themselves around Jack. Jack looked outraged, clawed at the boy’s hand. Nigel swore and ran forward.
Something hit the frame. It was a rope, with a loop in it, hanging down from above. A piece of purple-and-orange braiding was tied to it.
Shanny?
Michael slashed the last strap. The boy and Jack fell to the floor. Michael backed against the frame, glanced down at the ratchet.
‘Nigel,’ the Senior Director said. ‘I expected better.’
‘Sorry, Sir,’ Nigel said. He charged.
Michael kicked back at the ratchet and flung himself aside. Nigel hit the frame, his weight carried it down, slamming it over the hole, catching his hand under it. He screamed as his fingers were crushed.
A gout of foul-smelling air blasted up.
Michael grabbed the boy, hauled him off Jack. ‘The rope,’ he said, trying to wrestle it around the boy’s chest. Shanny might be strong but she’d never lift them both. ‘It’ll get you out.’
‘Fuck off!’ The boy rammed his thin sweating shoulder against Michael’s, raised his hands in some half-arsed karate move. ‘I’m staying here! Fuckers killed my dog. You fuckers,’ he yelled. He was crying.
Michael’s hand hurt. He’d cut it on the knife trying to get the rope round the boy. He shook blood off, drops spiralling down on the warm air.
Jack got to his feet, his nose bloody. Nigel moaned, trying to roll his weight off the frame without breaking his wrist. ‘My hand! Help me!’
The Senior Director rolled his eyes, and reached into his jacket. ‘This is very disappointing. Very.’ Gun, Michael thought. Fuck.
‘Can’t apologise enough,’ Michael’s father said. ‘You’ve let me down, Michael.’
The Senior Director pulled the gun out of his jacket. There was a roar, and the floor shook. The Senior Director stumbled to one knee, the bullet spanged off the wall.
Something was surging up the hole in the floor. Jack was running at him, he held out his hands, fending him off, but the knife was in one of them. Jack looked startled as it went into his shoulder, reached up one faltering hand, dropping to his knees. Michael dropped the knife. Another rope hit his head. He grabbed it, thrust it at the boy, got his head and one arm through the first rope. The Senior Director was getting to his feet.
‘Michael, stop this nonsense!’ His father strode towards him. ‘Do as you’re told!’
‘Sorry, Pops,’ Michael said. He was hauled upwards. His feet left the ground. He kicked back, swung wildly. His feet hit his father in the chest, knocking him into the Senior Director. The gun skidded away across the floor. The boy was above him now, skinny legs kicking as some unseen angel drew him upwards.
He looked down, seeing a huge rising mouth, rings of teeth, Nigel a writhing silhouette.
He was moving fast now, everything below getting very small.
Not fast enough that he didn’t see the frame fly into the air.
Not fast enough that he didn’t see Nigel smashed against the wall.
Not fast enough that he didn’t see what happened to Jack.
Then he shut his eyes.
***
‘How did you know?’ he said. He was sitting with Shanny in her flat, a warm, cosily crowded space full of books and cushions and bright Indian cloth.
‘It’s what we do,’ she said. ‘We follow clues in the old stories, and we follow our noses. Remember when we met, and you said you thought I was in the police?’
‘Actually the police?’
‘We’re … unofficial. London’s been here a long time. It attracts things. There are places they’re drawn to. And sometimes people make places for them.’
‘There’s something I don’t understand,’ Michael said. ‘Well, lots. But why did it get so angry, at the end? It was going to get someone anyway, why did it suddenly go nuts?’
‘You cut your hand. It tasted your blood. I think it wanted a real sacrifice. You. Unwilling victims aren’t enough anymore; you were willing to save the boy and risk your own life.’ She smiled. ‘Even monsters have standards, or at least traditions.’
‘Oh. So what happens now?’
‘It may just leave. How many willing sacrifices do you think they’re going to be able to find?’
‘In the finance industry?’ Michael snorted.
‘Well quite. If it doesn’t leave? Exorcism. So what will you do now?’ Shanny said.
‘I can’t really go back.’
‘Will you miss it?’
‘Maybe the rush.’
‘Hmm.’ She put her tea down and wrapped her arms around her knees. ‘The pay’s shit, the benefits are nil, but there’s more than enough adrenaline and you get to save the world every now and again. Fancy a job?’ she said.
‘If you let me paint you,’ Michael said. ‘It probably won’t be good. I haven’t done it for years. But I’d like to.’
‘Deal.’ She grinned, looking him straight in the eye. ‘Do you do nudes?’
He grinned back. God, he felt alive. ‘If they ask me.’
The Smith of Hockley
James Brogden
The Midas Scorpion was an assassin’s tool of the Elder World, from a time long before there were distinctions between magic and machine, or life and art, or death and love. It was made of gold, finely articulated, with a single bead of poison still on the tip of its sting and its ruby eyes still glittering with mindless evil, even though it lay dead and flayed open on John Whelan’s work desk. The haphazard scattering of its eviscerated remains testified to his last moments of panic as he’d unsuccessfully looked for the secret of curing its poison, but Whelan was no longer in his workshop. He was upstairs in the little bedroom above the little shop wh
ich he and his wife Mary owned in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter; watching her die.
She was becoming crystal and gold, her flesh transforming into a hundred different types of precious and semi-precious stone. Her skin was a layer of alabaster; flesh turned to rose quartz and amethyst; nerves and sinews to veins of citrine, and her blood vessels to a webbed tracery of ruby threaded throughout. From the sting’s puncture mark on the back of her left heel the effect had spread up to engulf that whole leg in a matter of minutes, and watching it expand was like seeing frost crystals bloom on glass at high speed. He’d barely been able to get her upstairs and into bed before she was too heavy to move.
But it was not so fast that he didn’t have time to weep his inane apologies or for her to stroke his face with her weakening fingers and try to reassure him that ssh, baby, it wasn’t his fault, how could he have known? She didn’t bear him any bitterness; she said that he’d given her two-centuries’ more life than any simple gypsy girl had any right to expect, and assured him that there was no pain, but he saw the lie of that in the beads of sweat which turned to diamond chips on her skin.
‘You’re sure it was the Old Guard?’ he asked, knowing that she wouldn’t have been mistaken.
‘Now don’t!’ she struggled up on her elbows and fixed him with a look full of the fire that he’d fallen in love with, back in his wandering days. ‘Don’t you go getting yourself involved with them again, do you hear me? Promise me that you won’t do anything stupid-headed.’
‘I told them,’ he growled. ‘The last time they came here – no more weapons for their war.’
‘Promise!’
He so promised.
She collapsed back, as if it had taken the last of her strength to extract that from him. The poison climbed higher, into her midriff, and the small butterfly tattooed on her hip there became opal, emerald, and tourmaline. She would be dead before it reached her heart.
‘Make something beautiful from me,’ she whispered. ‘When it’s finished. Make the most beautiful thing you can think of, my darling Wayland.’ It was the first time she’d spoken his old name in over two hundred years.
Again, he so promised.