'Tell it,'
Aristide lifts her up and Katanya moans. Shudder of relief I keep still. Don't need this voodoo hardcase knowing I think Katanya's okay.
He kicks open a door. A short-order prostitute is in there with a client. Finished, thank Christ.
'Out'. Gesture with a thumb over the shoulder. They're gone.
It's about what you expect in here, except with a partially used condom on the bathroom floor and what was once a surprisingly cheerful pattern on the melting wallpaper that hangs down. Aristide lays Katanya on the bed, check for wounds properly. I watch him, seeing how he rolls with an unconscious woman but, a few looks aside, hands to himself.
Fills up a glass from the bathroom. Starts to wash all the blood off her.
'Nasty gash on her scalp.'
Pushes aside her hair and shows me.
Pick up the phone. Bettina. She's on her way.
Katanya gets with it about ten minutes later. Aristide sees the eyelid flutter and backs off. She wakes up with a start. Eyes real wide. Can see the whites from across the room.
'Lark! Jesus, where is he!?' scrabbles up the bed, back up against the wall.
Put out my hands.
'Dunno. He saved you.'
She looks over at Aristide. 'Bon swa'. Hear the pidgin in it.
'Who the fuck is that!?' Katanya is on the edge. Seen the Hollow at work myself. No blame to it.
'Katanya. Settle. He's with me, the Hollow isn't near. This guy's been hunting it himself.'
'Is... is he okay?'
Shrug. 'Got you out.'
Her breathing slows. She looks over Aristide. The worst of it leaves her.
'Anything to drink here?' I shake my head. So does the Houngan.
'Aristide. There's a boozer half a block down. Do me a favour, grab us a bottle. Some smokes.'
Glances up. 'Not your errand boy. I don't take orders from fucking Library.'
'Sure. But I'm not Library and this isn't an order. Just need a minute with this girl, okay?'
Holds my glance. Big dog circle but I'm not up for it. Look back even. 'Come on man.'
Looks over at Katanya. Looks back. 'Oui.'
Sit on the bed wishing I had a smoke. Look over at her.
'Anything you need to tell me before he comes back?'
'I - like. Well.'
'Tell it once in front of him. Just need to know if there's anything -'
'I can't - Lark.'
Just hold out a hand again. 'Relax.'
Nothing else I can do so I get her more water. She drinks three glasses, goes into the bathroom. 'Gross,' she says, stepping over the jimmy hat. Water turns on and strips off her black singlet. Wipes the blood off her face and belly.
Aristide comes in. Third of a bottle each into the dirty glasses and Katanya tells it, while, grateful, I take the smokes and the cheap fake Zippo he bought.
She tells it.
'We got the order to go in, so I did like you said, just never turned up. Crack team like mine...' sarcasm on that last.
'Foulstone, he comes to my house. I thought it was protected and no one's ever been there and I sure as hell never wrote it down. He's got. He's bought - the thing. Enkidu.'
'Edimmu', correct her quiet. Can't help it but she's not in a mood.
'Edimmu then, what the fuck ever. He's bought one. It's just a ragged shape made up of ... doesn't matter. Threatens me. I say jump you say how high. That sort of thing. By himself, just a little fat man screaming at me. With that thing, and Lark, it's at the bit, different story. It wants to hurt me so bad. I still tell him to go fuck himself and he just smiles. What's going to happen to my team if I'm not there to lead them? Just out and threatens. Get a message off to you. Team's already waiting for me. Off we go.'
She pulls hard on her drink. Reaches out, takes my cigarette and has a drag. I leave it with her, start my own. She ashes on the bed, raising its tone, improving those sheets’ colour.
'Down in the old city, you know?'
We both nod.
'Hollow kills them. We're warded up. Seeker spells on. Christ sake, McGonagall brought a piece.'
Dunno who that is.
'Hollow comes at us like a fucking bandsaw, man. Rosengarten. Saved him till last. Almost till last. Kicked him in the knee. Heard it shatter. He falls on it. Screams. Jesus. Screams... Then the Hollow scalps him.'
Takes more of a drink.
'Scalped him. Watching me. I froze up but not for long. I hit him with everything I had. Memetic hunter-killers, that should have had him fucking autistic. Loosed my knots on him. Spirits that can reach into your head, give you a stroke. Caught in his hands like they were real. Possession words, should have shot things into his nervous system that would have locked him up, shut down his lungs. The Hollow... whatever lives in the mask just sort of... I could feel it reach out and hunt them through his nerves, chasing them down like it was a wolf.'
What's new here? The Hollow is immensely powerful, that's understood. Higher order than most realities. Can't hit it with normal magic. But what it's never been is cruel. Taking scalps is new. She goes on.
'All of them, dead. Just in seconds. I barely - No. That's not right. I'm casting all these spells at him and he's just watching me while he scalps then pulls back the hair. Skin came with. He brings the blade up to my neck, ready to slice when he's done with Rosengarten. Sniffs me. Says he smells you on me. Says he says hello.'
Frown at her. 'No prep time from Foulstone?'
'Wait, just let me finish it. So we're all dead. They're all dead. I get out of there. Guess who's coming down the corridors, half a dozen of those screaming howling ghosts on leashes. Literally, on leashes.'
'What ghosts?' asks Aristide.
'Bad ones. Guy called Foulstone, Libraries' new headkicker. He has a knack for ‘em.'
Aristide just nods.
'You see what happens with that fight?'
'I'm gone by then. Running. Running so fast I hit a wall. Hit my head.'
Scalp wound.
'So no prep time. Just get in the van we move on the Hollow?'
'Yeah.'
Don't want to tell her but she sees it in my face. Too slow to keep up my poker expression. Damnit. It's been a big day. That thought, my legs commences its aching.
'What?'
Fine. Okay. Drop it.
'Foulstone sent you in to lure him out. Edimmu were the real big guns. That's at least one of the reasons he's been getting them ready. Probably figured when you couldn't get the hang of ‘em with a week or two training, he couldn't use you.'
'He set me up?' Voice sharp with hate.
'Looks like.'
Oh Scarlet. Did you know about this?
'Jesus, Lark - ' Grieving. Distorts her voice till she sounds like a drunk in a movie. 'Was this my fault?'
'Take a year to train you up to handle Sumerian ghosts. He just needed someone adept enough to find the Hollow. Someone he could -'
'Wait.' Aristide is standing up. 'It said it smelled you. On the girl.'
'Yeah.'
'We have to go. Hollow's not lying. Lark, you said it was pissed with you.'
Shit.
'It smelled my mother on me. Ten years ago. It's not a real scent but it can... link people. It's got three people moved on it, all in about three days.'
He's right.
'Katanya, do you think Foulstone can take the Hollow?'
'No. It doesn't play by the same rules.'
'Then Jon will be coming after us. Now. Get your shit. We're leaving.'
The hotel door opens.
v
Bettina, of course. Dressed for war. Black turtleneck, camo pants, black hair slicked back and plaited, fingerless gloves and boots. Eyes, eye, flicks straight to Aristide. Slightest shake of my head. Looking for the knives I know she'll have somewhere but she's too good for me.
'This is Aristide. He's got static with the Hollow.'
Eye each other off, tough guy moment.
Bettina looks
down at Katanya, who’s still on the bed.
'This her?'
'Yeah.'
'She skinny, man.'
Say nothing to that.
'Hey, girl. You're skinny.'
Katanya is back-footed then gets it. 'Jesus Lark, you put that shit on the internet?'
Bettina thinks that's real funny.
'I didn't say anything, lady. But I don't keep secrets from my partner.' Which is the biggest lie I've told in a while.
'Fucking hell. All I asked you was to keep it quiet.'
Aristide twigs. 'What's this man? Your main piece and the side meeting up?'
'Fuck you!' yells Katanya. Bettina shakes her head.
'I like tough guys.' Stares at the Haitian, who smiles right at the dead woman.
'Listen, we could sit around here flirting and discussing our sex lives -'
'Forget it Lark. You don't have a sex life!' Katanya isn't happy.
'Or we could sit down and discuss our feelings.'
'Seriously, Lark, what the fuck!? You brag to your buddies down the bar? I fucked a dyke! ' But she ain't mad at me.
Bettina steps in front of her. Looks down. Then kneels. Leans in close.
'Lady, I figured it out. Alright? Lark didn't say nothing. But even if he did, I don't give one lonely good goddamn. I can see you been through some shit tonight and that's cool. I respect that you're wound up tight. But no one's got time for you to take it out on us.'
Katanya goes tense and let's it go. Good. I ain't got no time for drama.
'Bettina, here's the score. Hollow is hunting us. We're not ready for him. We can't fight him. So we're on the move. Aristide, can you get us some wheels?'
'Are you asking me, a black man from Africa itself, trained in the arts and a speaker with the Gods, if I can steal you a car? You some kind of - you into stereotypes there, man?'
'Aristide, you're a black man trained in arts whose also ran a successful drug-importation and resale business for a few years. So, let's not make the simple act of stealing a fucking car a call for a political roundtable, eh?'
He just laughs at that, deep and rich. 'Of course I can steal a car. This fine woman want to come?'
'No.'
No because there is no way in hell Bettina is out of my sight ‘til we figure out what's going on with the Hollow. He walks off still laughing.
'We got a plan here, Lark?'
'No, baby. I got the Devil messing with me -'
'Yeah, was gonna ask.'
'And you already did a go round with the Hollow.'
'I seen his moves. I just go to -'
'No. He can't be beaten by force. That's nothing on you, you fight like hell. But I don't want to risk you on a fight no one can win.'
Katanya sneers. 'Is this woman seriously trying to get into a, a fistfight with the Hollow?'
Bettina looks at her. 'Yeah.'
Tension. 'Fuck lady,' says Katanya. Extends her fist. 'Mad respect.'
Bettina pounds it.
'But the Hollow, Lark's right. When I was a little girl, I remember when that man beat up my mother. I remember thinking to myself, I remember it ‘cause it was a weird thought for a kid. I remember thinking that I was at least happy that I could never be that afraid again. No story, no scary story would ever matter.'
Dead woman looks to me. 'Yeah.'
Looks back at Katanya. 'He's a scary motherfucker alright.'
'Yeah,' says Katanya. 'No, he's right about the Hollow. It isn't on you. You try it and you die.'
Looks over at me then Bettina asks 'She doesn't know?'
'I don't advertise it.'
'Katanya is it?'
'Yeah.'
Bettina puts her hand on Katanya's cheek. Confusion for a second, then Katanya's face shows she gets it.
'Oh, oh, I'm so sorry.'
But I'm not listening. Out of the window, across at some slum, there's a shape moving up a fire escape. Too dark to see anything. Still. You want to take the chance, something like that?
'Let's go.'
They both stare out the window. No time for it.
'Let's go.'
Head downstairs. Lobby still empty. Out through the doors, Bettina first, searching, looking up into those shadows.
'Nothing.' But she doesn't quit looking.
Second later, some grey nothing of a car, don't know nothing about cars, can't tell you make or model, pulls up in front of us. Me and Katanya in the back, Bettina, gets in last, taking her eyes off the darkness like she's reluctant. Aristide guns it and we go.
'You think that was him?' I ask.
Aristide swears. 'Where!'
'I dunno, Lark.' Bettina shrugs.
We cruise cross-town, the witch doctor, the two magicians and the corpse. Driving sensible. Crack the window and light up.
Katanya nudges me on my leg. I look at her. She points at Bettina.
Mouths she's hot.
I fake half a smile. Ignore the fact the Devil is following us in some black sports car, worth more than a house. Trying not think about the fact that I don't know what the fuck to do.
Fourteen
i
The Hollow hunts. It can't literally scent the creatures it hounds but there is something not unlike a lodestone sensation that is grounded in the centre of its chest. When the Teaching Darkness was simply instructing the man on how to kill and evolve past mortality, it practiced by plying a trade of assassination. Those days were past. Now the Teaching Darkness spoke of horror. Its ambitions grown genocidal.
Jon would have been repulsed but what remained of Jon was long since a tattered ghost inside his own skin. His own ethical imperatives, his own responses to sadism and cruelty, were tears in a storm.
The Teaching Darkness had used this lodestone sensibility to show the man where prey was and it used this skill now. Many had come to kill him these past few nights. Momentous doings were in the air. A Sutekh-story, the magicians, more besides.
The ghosts. Ancient, ragged, rabid ghosts. Those had been worthy adversaries. If the Teaching Darkness had not desired a different battle, they would have stayed to see if even the millennial dead could learn more lessons in pain.
(You ran, thought the scrap of Jon. I was there and you ran. But the Teaching Darkness is entirely uninterested in humility and extends a dendrite lash until Jon's voice is silenced.)
The Hollow has plans for the man. Unfond of humanity, it seeks to create an engine to punish them for their venalities and cruelties. That is why it exists - to create a charnel wonderland, an endless garden of abomination - then step back and show humanity the sum of its ambitions and the true face of its desires. It remembers its origins only dimly but knows that it was created by those who suffered an Empire and wished engineer oppression on its oppressors. To return calumnies and sadisms a hundredfold.
But the Teaching Darkness found this to be a desire lacking in rigour and avidity. In Jon, whose traits and skills and power it has magnified a thousand fold, it feels it has a pupil worthy of its plans. A vessel for its transformations.
And the man Lark, who Jon once spared, a last defiance against the mask that had mastered him, was endangering that plan.
The Lodestone sense would lead the Hollow, the Teaching Darkness, to Lark and all that travelled with him. Every ally and companion. And then the Hollow would make a demonstration of his pitiless intentions.
ii
Foulstone is glistening.
The blood of ghosts has splashed over him, soaked into his clothes and his hair. He holds his fist up to the dim candlelight which is the only illumination in the Hollow's lair. He feels like diamond has seeped over him. The thought amuses him that the effect, on any other living human than he, toad-faced and fat, it would be beautiful. But Foulstone, a man with a fine imagination, cannot bring himself to believe in the possibility of his own beauty.
A lifetime of rejections from beautiful women, a lifetime of barbed jokes, man and boy, about the shape of his face, the sick colours of his e
yes, the heaviness of his breasts, have long since disabused him of any belief that there is a single thing about him that has grace, that pleases aesthetically. He'd deny this but more than any other thing, this systematic assault on his appearance has lead him down roads of spite and pettiness. He sees the world as a place to exact revenge from. The need for an answer to other's cruelties lead him to magic. And magic lead him to a taste for authority.
Ask him though and he'll tell you he has no esteem for beauty in himself, or in others. Of course, he'd be lying. One day he hopes to reshape his heavy body that seems to soak in lipids and fatty acids into something beautiful but that is an ambition he has never dared to articulate.
Perhaps we should be understanding, then, of how the pale and deflated figures disgust him. Five Edimmu, creatures who have survived every era of metropolitan human existence, now reminding him of nothing so much as deep sea creatures, raised up suddenly and thrown without regard upon a sunny shore.
They coat the lair like paint. Once their miens were feral, their eyes black with need. Now those faces are dilute, as if they were crafted onto oil and that oil left to run and ooze. The faces spread like slow sick mercury. Those eyes, only minutes ago more shark than human, now look up at him with pleading. It sickens him, obviously. The extremity of their need fills him with fury.
Foulstone is a ghost-eater. He lowers himself, mindful of his bulk, onto the ground and laps at their ectoplasmic essence. Like a cat does.
The dead taste good. Their memories, with age, seep from mouth to the blood then are expressed into his brain, finding folds to nest in, chemicals to bond with. He'll examine them later.
Right now, he's too excited. Because the first stage of the plan seems operational. They can defeat the Hollow.
The mask can be theirs.
Yes.
iii
'Katanya.'
'What?'
Too early in the morning and the tension is easing back as the sun threatens to come up. Then a thought hits me.
Aristide, still driving, looks back. Bettina glances at me in the rear-view.
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