The Twilight Streets

by Gary Russell

  Bilis threw Idris Hopper’s envelope across to him.

  ‘One of your lesser minions delivered this to you last night. I intercepted it, but it’s all nonsense.’

  Jack tore open the envelope. It was a sheaf of papers, marked, ‘TRANSLATION OF JACK’S (or whoever’s) DIARY’. Typed beneath that, Jack read, ‘Done extremely under protest by Idris Hopper who, God forbid he might actually have a life of his own, is actually bored by this. Oh, and Jack, you owe me £12.62 for lemon juice.’

  Jack smiled and sifted through the translation. But it was just a series of notes about Victorian Cardiff, circa 1871.

  ‘There’s a note,’ Bilis waved towards the envelope as he poured tea. ‘Nice boy, by the way. One of your conquests? Looked the type. Thin. Breakable. Desperate for love and attention. Needing a father figure.’ He passed the tea to Jack. ‘Bit like your Ianto Jones, really.’

  Jack ignored Bilis and shoved his hand into the envelope, tugging out the sticky Post-It that had got caught on the inside: ‘Jack, mae’r boi’n siarad trwy’i din ac mae popeth fi’n ysgrifennu yma’n rwtsh llwyr. Mae’r dyddiadur dal gen i.’

  Jack pulled a face. His Welsh was rusty. ‘Can you translate this? You know, being a man of the world?’

  Bilis shrugged. ‘As I told the lovely Mr Hopper last night, languages are not my speciality.’ But he frowned. ‘I assumed you’d be able to understand it though.’

  Jack looked at the notes again, and then at Bilis. ‘I get the gist. Thank you. For, you know, passing this on.’

  ‘I don’t like you, Captain, and I’m fairly sure you don’t like me. But we are drawn together and, strange as it may seem, we are on the same side.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh yes, indeed.’ Bilis sipped his tea. ‘What do you know about consequences?’

  ‘Lots. You?’

  Bilis smiled. ‘Yes. Many years ago, two demon beasts fought for control of the Rift. Pwccm versus Abaddon. You are, of course, familiar with the latter.’

  Jack just sniffed at the tea.

  Bilis laughed. ‘It’s not poisoned, Jack. Really, how dull do you think I am?’

  ‘What have you done with my team?’

  ‘Honestly? Nothing. I needed to put them in a transient state, so they could dream the future.’

  Jack stood up. ‘I’m hearing words, Bilis. Sounds and nonsense. I’m not hearing explanations.’

  Bilis sipped his tea again. ‘You have lived for a long time, Jack. And by my reckoning, you will for a long time yet. You may even outdo me, who knows. I can’t predict my own future, none of us can. But what I can do is see the possibilities. It’s my gift. Or curse – that depends on one’s point of view.’

  ‘And you needed them why?’

  ‘Because you are the future I’m concerned about Jack – and I can’t read you. There, I’ve said it. You are a barrier to me, as Tretarri was to you until I was ready to let you in. Which today I did.’

  Jack pointed outside. ‘Why the party?’

  ‘There’s always a price to pay for freedom. I need to know how far you’ll go to protect these ridiculous people and their corrupt world.’

  ‘What is going on?’

  ‘Consequences. Abaddon had a task, a significant place in the structure of things.’

  ‘He destroyed lives.’

  ‘He did that no more consciously than you and I breathe the air. It’s what he did. He is… he was perfection. A purity so immaculate, so delicate because your evil was his good. He did what he did to survive. And, to protect.’ Bilis poured more tea. ‘What you fail to grasp, Jack Harkness, is the consequences of your actions. The people of this era, this time, they irradiate their crops with insecticides, because the tiny creatures they hate destroy their crops. When they destroy the insects, the things the insects feed on then live, flourish and grow stronger. With no natural predators, they mutate.’

  Jack moved to pull the drapes open, to let some light in.

  Bilis clicked his fingers, and suddenly Jack wasn’t facing the window, he was facing the opposite wall. Angrily he turned around again.

  Bilis just smiled at him, a teacher addressing a slightly dim pupil. ‘You have to understand, everything in this house is mine to control, even you. You will listen to me because, out there, I can’t control anything, but in here we can talk. We are… protected.’

  He pointed to the box on the table.

  ‘The essence of what I am here to protect. It was dying, spent and exhausted, trying to fight a battle it could no longer win because someone had taken away its insects. Or its demons, to use your vernacular, gauche as it is.’

  Jack sat in the armchair and tried to open the box.

  ‘Jack?’

  ‘Greg?’

  The apparition of Greg Bishop was facing him and, in the room, able to see it clearly, he realised the outline of his old friend and lover was constructed from tiny lights.

  ‘Natural halogens,’ Bilis said. ‘Back in 1941, I needed a vessel to keep them from dying, to give them something to focus upon, to construct a new existence around. Mr Bishop had the diary in his hands, he became their vessel.’ He clapped his hands. ‘Lemon juice! Of course, Mr Hopper has the diary, and you asked him to find out what it said. I never managed that, you see.’

  Bilis reached for the papers Idris had given Jack, flicked through them, and angrily tossed them to the floor. He swung around to Jack, suddenly angry, light blazing literally in his eyes. ‘I need that diary, Jack. It contains the solution.’

  ‘It contains words, Bilis. That’s all. You had it when you gave it to Tilda Brennan.’

  ‘No, you fool. I never had it. The Torchwood Institute had it, they defiled a grave to acquire it, because they wanted to release what was in it. That’s why it took Greg Bishop here. I didn’t do that, Abaddon didn’t do that. Greg’s death is entirely on your conscience because none of this need have happened if you hadn’t destroyed Abaddon.’

  ‘I destroyed Abaddon this year. What happened to Greg was in 1941.’

  ‘Revenge for the future! It was a message. Contained in the ink the diary was written in. It is not in the words, it’s in the ink. I gave the diary to a trustworthy man who owned the area where the Lords fought for control of the Rift, where my Lord Abaddon faked defeat so he could prepare and gain strength. This place, Tretarri.’

  Jack stood again. ‘So let me get this straight. A fight in the nineteenth century between two creatures for supremacy over the Rift. Abaddon was one of those. And he apparently lost. You gave some guy the secret to releasing Rift energies that foretold the future and, when Torchwood got in the way, you needed me to sort it out. By lying, deceiving and killing my friends, you got me here, today, in the hope that somehow I’d do what? Bring Abaddon back?’

  Bilis shook his head. ‘Abaddon was the Devourer. His role in life, in eternity, was to destroy the Darkness. You stopped that.’

  ‘He killed hundreds.’

  ‘They were irrelevant!’ Bilis was almost shouting now. ‘Insignificant insects, food to keep him sated so he could achieve the apotheosis of his mission. To protect the Rift from the Dark.’

  And Jack remembered the lights he’d seen in the Rift storm the previous night. Blobs of light and dark.

  ‘They live in the Rift, Jack. Beings of pure halogen, elements of intelligence, at war for millennia. Abaddon was protecting the Light from the invasion of the Dark. And you stopped it.’

  Jack thought about this. ‘Where is the Light now, other than here creating images of Greg Bishop?’

  Greg’s ghostly form turned to Jack. ‘I saw the future, Jack. I saw all those potential ifs, maybes and buts. The Dark will be released by your team in the future. Corrupting your people until they build an empire of Darkness over this world, so they can feed. I’m sorry, Jack, I couldn’t intervene, the Light is so weak. It needs hosts, otherwise it will die. And the Dark will live.’

  ‘And this is in the future?’

  ‘The near future.’r />
  Bilis stood between them. ‘That is why I took your team out of the action, Jack. While I keep them suppressed, the corruption cannot occur.’ He pointed to the box on the table. ‘It’s a prison, Jack. The Light and the Dark need to be drawn into it, to continue their eternal battle in a prison. The Light is willing to make the sacrifice to save this world, to save the Rift. Are you?’

  Jack looked at Bilis. At Greg.

  ‘No. No, I’m not. Because I don’t believe a word you say.’

  Ianto was sitting on the pavement, the crowds milling around him, his head in his hands.

  A mime tried to reach down and pull him up and, as Ianto looked up to refuse, the mime simply flickered, like a faulty light.

  The effect on the mime was devastating. He hit the ground with a colossal smack, and Ianto was at his side in a moment.

  Events like this – always a St John Ambulance man somewhere to hand.

  ‘Help,’ he called out.

  Then he frowned. The mime simply melted away in his hand, and in his place was a bunch of tiny spots of bright light. Like the ones that had occupied him when Bilis had held him.

  Ianto backed away, and careered into a man who’d been watching him.

  ‘Did I just see what I thought I saw?’ asked the man.

  Ianto pulled himself together, Torchwood training taking over. ‘Not sure what you mean, sir.’

  The man looked at him and smiled. ‘You have to be Ianto Jones. The suit, the neatness.’ He paused, then smiled. ‘Jack’s fond of you. My name is Idris.’

  Ianto knew immediately who he was talking to. ‘From the Council?’ How lame did that sound?

  Idris laughed. ‘You could say that. I came looking for Jack.’

  ‘Not seen him,’ Ianto said, more truthfully than he’d have liked. The memory of that dream was still raw.

  A hand touched his shoulder.

  ‘Good to see you back in the land of the living, Ianto,’ said Jack. ‘Hi there, Idris. Good job on the paperwork. Where’s the diary?’

  Idris smiled at Jack. ‘In my bag. Along with…’ He brought out another set of papers with a flourish. ‘The real translation!’

  Jack nodded. ‘Took a gamble that my reading Welsh was better than my spoken Welsh. And you were right – it fooled Bilis long enough. Thank you.’

  Ianto suddenly hugged Jack, tightly, and didn’t let go. He whispered into Jack’s ear. ‘What does “Revenge for the Future” mean to you?’

  ‘If I knew that, I’d be a happier man. Another thing I’d like to understand.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘That.’

  Jack was pointing at the people in the street. Clowns, magicians, tricksters – and all the general public who had come to see them. All standing watching the three men. Their eyes gone, replaced by burning fierce light.

  Except five people to one side. A mum, dad and child, an old lady and the Kabuki living statue performer Idris had seen earlier.

  Their eyes were gone, too, but replaced by a dark blackness. No light – the very opposite of light – and from within came something darker than the most powerful black hole.

  ‘Tosh?’

  Ianto looked at Jack and then at the Kabuki.

  And under the make-up and clothes, yes, it was Toshiko.

  The light-embodied others turned to look at the five newcomers.

  ‘This isn’t going to be good,’ muttered Jack.

  He grabbed Ianto and Idris and bustled them into number 6 Coburg Street.

  In the room, the outside still cut off by the olive drapes, Bilis and the shimmering form of Greg waited.

  Jack crossed to the window. ‘Let’s shed a little light, shall we?’ He threw open the drapes and turned to Bilis.

  ‘Well?’ said the old man.

  ‘All right, so maybe there’s some truth in what you told me, Bilis. What do we need to do?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said simply.

  ‘What?’ shouted Ianto.

  Bilis sighed. ‘This is your fault. All of you. I protected the Light. Abaddon protected the Light. The diary please, Mr Hopper.’

  Idris looked to Jack, who nodded. He passed the book to the old man.

  ‘You read it I assume. Any clues?’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘Idris, what did it say?’ asked Jack quietly.

  And Idris told them what Gideon ap Tarri had seen, how Bilis had given him the diary and pen and instructed him to have it buried with him. ‘The last thing he said was he was going to try and escape from the Scottish Torchwood guy. That was it.’

  Bilis was running his hands over the diary. ‘Yes, this is it. The protection is still here.’ He looked at Greg Bishop’s ghostly form. ‘Thank you.’

  Before Jack could say anything, Bilis had opened the book, and Greg’s form immediately dissipated. A blur of light shot into the pages of the book, briefly forming written words that soon faded.

  Bilis looked at Jack, an expression of pity on his otherwise serene face. ‘He died in 1941, Jack. They just kept his essence alive. If it makes you feel any better, you chose the right man to love. He was, in every way, a good man.’

  Ianto was looking at Jack, but the older man was ignoring him.

  ‘What has happened to Tosh?’

  Holding the book to his chest, Bilis closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he looked almost sympathetic. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘She is lost to the Dark.’

  ‘Not on my watch she isn’t,’ Jack said.

  Outside, the assembled crowds, both white-eyed and dark-eyed, took a step in unison towards the house.

  ‘OK – that’s creepy,’ Ianto said.

  ‘Saw that in a Michael Jackson video once,’ said Idris. ‘They were zombies, too.’

  ‘Bilis?’

  ‘It’s the age-old fight, Jack. Evil versus… Well, there’s such a grey area between good and evil really isn’t there? One man’s demon is another man’s god.’

  ‘Jack,’ Ianto grabbed his sleeve. ‘I had a dream.’

  ‘Oh God, it’s Martin Luther King,’ Idris muttered.

  ‘Is this the time, Ianto?’ Jack wondered.

  ‘Yes, Jack, it is. Light versus Dark. The lights. There were lights in the Rift storm.’

  Jack recalled what he’d seen on top of Ty Stadiwm the night before. He was getting cross, because it kind of tied in with what Bilis had been saying, and Jack’s biggest fear right now was that Bilis was right and this was all a consequence of what he’d done months ago.

  He looked Bilis in the eye. ‘To hell with consequences, Bilis. If I stopped every time I opted to save human lives, stopped to think about who I was saving or what I was saving them from, I’d never move. Never decide. Be caught with an endless stream of possibilities, probabilities and maybes ahead of me.’

  ‘Welcome to my life, Jack,’ Bilis said.

  ‘I will not apologise for destroying Abaddon. I will not apologise for the fact that by destroying him we closed the Rift and brought everyone back to life. Some of those people are probably standing out there today. I did not fail them then, and I’m damned if I will do it now.’

  Bilis took a breath. ‘The Light and the Dark, Jack. We don’t need to imprison them both! We can split them up, trap the Dark in the box I showed you, and release the Light into the Rift. From there, they will return down below where they belong, keeping Pwccm imprisoned for eternity. Because, however evil you believe my Lord to have been, you do not want Pwccm released in his stead. And that’s what you disturbed, Jack. In destroying Abaddon, the other Beast and his Dark warriors were able to imprison the Light. I saved some of them, kept them in the box. We can do a swap, because Pwccm has been foolish enough to send his soldiers into this dimension to fight the Light.’

  ‘You mean, we’re just caught up in a battle between alien light creatures from another dimension? That this has nothing to do with us?’ Ianto shook his head. ‘Just another day at Torchwood then. So… where does this Revenge for the Future thing c
ome in?’

  Bilis shrugged. ‘I’m not sure – it was what the Light said. It’s why Greg Bishop said it when possessed by them. It’s why it’s in the diary, which is what can keep the Light alive – the ink it made from their life essences.’

  ‘OK.’ Jack took a deep breath. ‘Light: they need to be back in your diary for safekeeping. Dark, they need to go into the prison box. Neither actually live naturally in the Rift energy, but both have used it as a mode of crossing the dimensions. On the mark so far?’

  Bilis nodded.

  ‘So what actually released them. Here and now?’

  ‘I doubt they are from the here and now,’ said Bilis.

  ‘Revenge. For the Future. Something we did – I did? – in the future will release them? I release the Dark light, and the Light light want revenge on me for that?’

  ‘Hence the trap, Jack,’ Bilis stepped towards him. ‘You had to be old enough, wise enough to be prepared. I can’t tell you what the journey you are going to embark upon will show you. I only see possible futures and none I’ve seen explains the Dark’s release. But the Light wanted you here for a reason.’

  ‘He could be lying,’ Ianto said.

  ‘Ya think?’ Jack sighed. ‘But whatever it is, I need to know. Ianto, Idris, if this goes wrong, I want Bilis, bullet, back of the head before he can vanish.’ He looked at Bilis. ‘Got that?’

  ‘Kill him?’ Idris was horrified.

  ‘Um, problem Jack. I don’t have a gun any more.’ Ianto smiled sheepishly. ‘Sorry.’

  Bilis produced Ianto’s pistol out of thin air and placed it in Ianto’s palm. He smiled and put his hands round Jack’s clenched fists. ‘A show of faith. I need the Light saved and the Dark imprisoned. Or I will have failed. And I never fail.’

  ‘Well, except with Abaddon,’ Ianto said.

  ‘Not helping, Ianto,’ Jack said.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Look at me, Jack.’ Bilis’s face filled Jack Harkness’s field of vision.

  Jack gasped as the old man’s eyes flared with the halogen brilliance of the Light.

  And it poured into Jack’s own eyes.