Jack of Ravens

by Mark Chadbourn

  As they passed through the crowds, the quality of the light changed. Mist drifted in and suddenly the air was filled with the aromas of perfumes and spices. They broke through the mist to find a great many stalls populated by people who were unmistakably not of this world. Their odd and grotesque appearances were often masked by wide-brimmed hats and cloaks, medieval gowns or Elizabethan doublets. To a person, their faces had a waxy sheen that made them look like masks over their real faces.

  A few hippies passed amongst the stalls in a trance, beckoned here and there by the owners, and offered delights or nightmares disguised as such.

  Church moved through the stalls, asking one purveyor after another about the Extinction Shears. Finally he came to a skeletal man in a black robe made of tatters who rubbed his hands together obsequiously when Church questioned him.

  ‘Ah, so sorry. Just sold,’ he said. ‘But I can offer you even greater wonders …’ From the mass of items on his stall, he plucked a glass globe that appeared to have a world at its centre.

  ‘Who bought the Shears?’ Church snapped.

  ‘A Fragile Creature.’

  ‘We’ll never find him,’ Ice said.

  ‘Perhaps you can.’ The trader’s eyes glittered. He picked up a small hand mirror; in its centre, a faint light shimmered like a torch on the horizon. ‘Follow the light and it will lead you to your heart’s desire. Yours for just a small price … a very small price.’

  Church glanced at Ice. The Hell’s Angel snatched the mirror and they ran from the market as fast as they could, the cries of the trader rising up behind them.

  21

  ‘We’ve got to get to the poor bastard before the Enemy finds him. Or before he tries to use this bargain he’s picked up and accidentally ends all Existence,’ Church said as they exited the park. ‘You get the others and meet me back at the house.’

  Ice headed towards the centre of the Haight while Church held the mirror before him. The light was no longer visible in the glass, but as he turned the mirror it slipped back into view. He moved towards it.

  22

  Night was falling as Ice reached the chaos that had erupted at the intersection of Haight and Ashbury. A cacophony of screams and shouts thundered in the air as the heaving crowd surged in panic. Police were all around and tear gas drifted on the breeze.

  Grace and Doctor Jay came running up with a young man with short hair, horn-rimmed glasses and a University of Berkeley T-shirt, and a woman with long auburn hair and an abundance of beads and bangles.

  ‘They’re killing us out there,’ Grace said breathlessly.

  ‘They’re making their move tonight. They’re going to catch us all in one go,’ Doctor Jay added.

  Ice nodded to the new arrivals. ‘These the last two?’

  ‘James and Deanna.’ Grace looked over her shoulder at the seething crowd.

  Ice could already feel his affinity for the two. In their faces he saw confidence and hardly any fear despite their situation. ‘Okay, that’s a full packet. Where are the others?’

  ‘Gabe’s taking photos. Marcy’s lost it. She’s on the front line, stoning the cops. Tom and Niamh are trying to drag her away,’ Grace said.

  ‘Let’s help them. We have to return to the house.’

  They pushed their way back into the crowd as a wave of movement and screams came from their right. Ice stood his ground as a terrified mob washed around him. Behind them staggered five men and women clutching their faces where weeping sores were rapidly blooming.

  And behind them, floating two feet above the sidewalk, was a voluptuous woman, nearly naked apart from a few wisps of gossamer veil. Her black hair flowed out all around a terrible face with wide, staring eyes and enormous fangs that looked sharp enough to tear off a man’s arm. Her fingers and toes ended in jagged claws.

  A young woman ran by, so busy looking over her shoulder at the police that she didn’t see what she was passing. With rattlesnake speed, the floating thing lashed out and caught the woman across the side of the face with her claws. Instantly, the woman faltered. Her shock turned to discomfort and then agony as the sores began to appear.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ Ice said.

  ‘Rangda.’ Doctor Jay’s sunglasses made him impassive. ‘The demon-queen of Bali. Spreads plague. Leads an army of evil witches.’

  ‘You read too many books,’ Ice growled. He herded them back into the crowd as Rangda darted forward.

  ‘The police aren’t going to let us out of here,’ Grace squealed. ‘That thing’s going to pick us off one by one.’

  ‘We’ll get out,’ Ice said. Church is counting on us. We don’t let him down, you hear?’

  The crowd swallowed them up and the screams grew louder.

  23

  The light in the mirror blazed so brightly that Church could barely look into it. He was outside one of the Victorian mansions near the Grateful Dead’s house that had been raided only four nights earlier. He could already tell something was wrong. The front door hung on twisted hinges and the hall light blazed out into the night.

  He entered cautiously. A man lay dead on the stairs, his throat torn out. On the first-floor landing, a woman hung over the banister, both eyes missing. His heart pounding, Church followed the trail of blood to a door on the second floor. It swung open at Church’s fingertips.

  The first thing he saw was writing on the walls in blood: Helter Skelter. Death to Pigs.

  The Libertarian was admiring his handiwork. He turned to Church blithely. ‘Just getting in a little practice for nineteen sixty-nine. Or repeating what I will do then, depending on your point of view. Charlie’s spelling is atrocious.’

  A ponytailed man with sunglasses sat on the sofa as if watching TV, a hole punched through his chest to where his heart had once been. The missing organ sat on a side table next to a lava lamp.

  ‘You’ve got the Shears,’ Church said flatly.

  ‘There was never any doubt. We’ve been searching for them for a long, long time, Mr Churchill.’ He dipped into the inside pocket of his long, black coat and pulled out what at first looked like a blinding white light. As Church forced himself to peer into it, he saw something that resembled a giant crystal snowflake, and then a series of circling orbs, and finally a pair of gold shears with ornate handles.

  The Libertarian smiled at Church’s unease. ‘Oh, don’t worry, I have no intention of using them now. One wrong snip and the whole thing could start to unravel. We will take our time, ensure everything is just right, safe for us, not so for you, and then …’ He made a snipping motion with two fingers of his free hand. ‘Things fall apart. The centre cannot hold.’

  Knowing he had no choice, Church advanced. The Libertarian smiled mockingly just as Church saw movement in the corner of his eye. Hands like dry wood clutched at his wrist before an arm moved across his throat. In the mirror opposite he could see Etain’s dead eyes staring back at him. The loamy smell of her filled his nostrils.

  ‘Despite what you might think, we really do know what we are doing.’ The Libertarian strode to the door and paused. ‘Oh – remember when we met not so very long ago in that cold city? I told you then what would happen if you ever chose to re-enter the game.’

  ‘Don’t hurt Gabe and Marcy.’ Church strained in Etain’s grip. ‘They’ve got nothing to do with this.’

  ‘I can’t go back on my word,’ the Libertarian said indignantly. ‘Well, perhaps just one of them. I shall attend to that piece of business before I take a very long flight to the East. Have to see how our boys are getting on scaring up a few Fabulous Beasts with their napalm.’

  Church could hear him humming merrily as he walked down the stairs. Etain closed the crook of her elbow tighter around Church’s throat. In the mirror, her unblinking stare never left his face.

  ‘Etain, I’m really sorry about what happened to you,’ Church said hoarsely. ‘I don’t know if you can hear me, but I wanted to say that. There hasn’t been a day gone by when I haven’t regretted
what Veitch did to you, or felt guilty for getting you into it.’

  Etain didn’t register a flicker of emotion.

  ‘But I can’t go on beating myself up over that. There’s too much at stake now and too many people relying on me. I hope wherever you are you understand that.’

  While he was talking, Church had been shifting his position. He drove backwards with all his weight and smashed Etain into the wall, then pulled forward and did it again. While she was off-balance, Church jackknifed at the waist. Etain flew over his shoulder and crashed into the TV set. Amidst the flash and the sparks there was the smell of burning dead flesh.

  Church didn’t wait to see the results. He was soon racing into the night to save his friends.

  24

  The panic at the intersection had subsided when the police allowed some of the crowd to flow up Ashbury. Unmarked vans were already being loaded with body bags containing the plague victims. The demon-queen was gone.

  Church found Ice and Grace helping some of the people who had been hurt in the crush.

  ‘Bummer of a way to end the Summer of Love,’ Grace said.

  Gabe came up, dismayed. ‘The fascist pigs took my camera,’ he said.

  ‘Where’s Marcy?’ Church looked around, then pushed his way through the crowd in time to see Marcy being dragged into the back of a black car with smoked windows. The Libertarian saw Church, nodded and climbed in after her before the car sped swiftly away.

  25

  Back at the apartment, Gabe was beyond consoling. Church left him to Niamh’s ministrations while he consulted with Tom.

  ‘You did your best,’ Tom said.

  ‘It’s not over,’ Church responded defiantly.

  ‘If they have the Extinction Shears, it really is. Existence will be remade in the image of the Void for all time. No ebb and flow of hope against despair, no Blue Fire to hold back the dark. We will live in the best of all possible worlds, and the best of all worlds will be the worst imaginable.’ Tom sat on the edge of the bed, staring into the middle distance.

  ‘The Libertarian wasn’t planning to use them straight away. Now that the Enemy has them, they can take their time. And if the Shears are as powerful as everybody says, they can’t afford to rush into using them blindly.’

  ‘So what are you saying – that you’re going to parachute into Vietnam?’ If I have to.’

  ‘I can help.’ Gabe was at the door, his cheeks flushed.

  I know how you must be feeling,’ Church began, but the likelihood is that Marcy isn’t alive.’

  ‘You don’t know that. You never turned away when the odds were against you. You’re not doing it now. You’ve taught me a lesson there – blame yourself. I’m not going to give up on Marcy until I know for sure she’s dead.’

  ‘All right. What do you suggest?’

  ‘I got an offer from Life magazine to do some work for them. They need photographers in the war zone. Tim Page, Errol Flynn’s son, a few others – they’re doing good work, but there aren’t enough of them. Nobody wants to risk their neck.’

  ‘You can get accreditation for me?’ Church said.

  ‘As a writer, maybe. If you’re ready to take the risk.’

  ‘Ten thousand Americans have already died there this year,’ Church said. ‘The chances of getting out alive aren’t good.’

  Tom nodded. ‘Then it’s a suicide mission. Can I have your Frank Sinatra records?’

  26

  Vietnam, 31 January 1968

  A heat haze hung so heavily over the thick jungle vegetation that Vietnam appeared to be boiling in the afternoon sun. In the sweaty, oppressive atmosphere clothes became sodden in minutes and Church’s brain thudded inside his skull with every beat of his heart.

  As he looked out across the treetops from the open door of the chopper, Church accepted that while he thought he had come to understand despair on the long, weary road from the Iron Age, he hadn’t really come close. Below him, soldiers were being slaughtered, blown apart, tortured, burned alive, turned into quadriplegics. Civilians were being murdered, their livelihoods destroyed. Troops turned against their own leaders. Countrymen killed each other by the thousand. And as the sickening death toll mounted day by day, and the waves of escalating violence washed out across the region, across the world, it was clear there was no point to it at all. Vietnam was a machine fuelled by human suffering and it would go on for ever if they let it.

  Church knew from the hindsight of history that it wouldn’t. Instead, the Enemy would get smart and simply shift the conflict to new venues around the globe, from Africa to the Middle East, a perpetual world tour of misery.

  ‘Are you ready for this?’ Gabe was checking his camera equipment in the next seat.

  ‘As much as I’ll ever be.’

  They’d only been in Vietnam a few weeks, but already Church could see the horrors they’d witnessed etched into Gabe’s once-innocent face. His fears for Marcy had turned him into a different person. No longer the laid-back hippie with the JFK fixation, he made contacts, wheeling and dealing and bribing military men jaded by the rigours of war, doing anything he could to find leads to the Libertarian’s whereabouts.

  The intelligence had been sketchy, but there had been a few references to spiders in Vietcong transmissions coming out of what had been known as the Iron Triangle, a highly dangerous area of forty square miles bordered by the Saigon River to the west and the Thi Tinh River to the east.

  And so Gabe had spent several hundred dollars buying them places on a small incursion into the heart of the area: just twenty-seven soldiers and a handful of men from the 1st Engineer Battalion to investigate some of the 1,000 miles of Vietcong tunnels that crisscrossed the area.

  ‘The mirror’s still working?’ Gabe asked quietly.

  Out of sight of the soldiers in the helicopter, Church showed Gabe the artefact he had retrieved from the Market of Wishful Spirit. A bright light glowed in the centre.

  The choppers came down one by one in a clearing in a dense part of the jungle that had not been razed to the ground during Operation Cedar Falls the previous year. The troops piled out, keeping their heads low beneath the whirling blades. Church and Gabe were amongst the last on the ground.

  ‘Dust-off in six hours!’ the captain yelled before the helicopters took off into the haze.

  The captain was college-educated and had a decent nature, but couldn’t mask his belief that he was out of his depth. Like many officers, he hadn’t had the chance to build up any experience before being thrown into the thick of combat. ‘Stay close. Don’t wander off the track,’ he said to Church and Gabe. ‘This area is rife with booby traps. We’re supposed to have cleared out the VC, but nobody believes that. There’ll probably be snipers.’ He eyed his men, the majority of whom were not yet out of their teens and as green as he was. ‘We’ve been tasked to head south. There’s been some kind of vague intel that Hanoi’s planning an offensive. That’s all crap. It’s Tet. There’s a ceasefire every year so the Vietnamese can observe their holiday.’

  Church kept a poker face: he couldn’t reveal that the Tet Offensive in 1968 would be the turning point in the war. The all-out military assault by the North Vietnamese Communists finally showed the American public they weren’t winning the war and brought despair to the US homeland.

  ‘If they’ve been told to head south, we need to go north,’ Church said to Gabe.

  ‘You think the Enemy knows we’re here?’

  ‘I don’t think the Army of the Ten Billion Spiders cares where we are any more, but their surrogates in the military and the CIA aren’t going to let anybody get too close to their operation.’

  The point man led the way into the bush and the rest of the troops fanned out behind, rifles at the ready.

  ‘If I get out of this alive with Marcy I’m going to ask her to marry me,’ Gabe said.

  Church looked away so Gabe wouldn’t see his belief that it was a futile hope.

  ‘Will you be the best man?’ Gab
e asked.

  ‘Sure.’ So his answer didn’t sound too flat, he added, ‘I’d be honoured.’

  It was hard going through the thick undergrowth. The heat was merciless and the tension from constantly searching the shadowy vegetation for enemy soldiers was intense.

  After a long period of silent contemplation, Gabe said, ‘I still don’t get why we’re here.’

  ‘Tom has a theory. The earth energy has nodes where it’s stronger – Avebury and Stonehenge in England, Krakow in Poland. The Fabulous Beasts are drawn to these sites.’

  ‘Why? Because they feed on the energy?’

  ‘They feed on it … they are it, to a degree. It’s difficult to explain. There’s a powerful tradition of dragons in the Far East, linked to the lines of force that run through the Earth. Tom thinks there might be some kind of source here – a place where the Blue Fire is created, or comes into our world, or something.’

  ‘So it would be more powerful, or pure, and it would attract more of those things?’

  Church shrugged. ‘It’s a theory.’

  After a few miles they broke for a rest. The soldiers sat around smoking and talking. Church and Gabe passed the time with the captain and a couple of engineers, the so-called ‘Tunnel Rats’. They had the worst job in Vietnam, making safe the booby-trapped, vermin-infested tunnel system of the Vietcong.

  One minute the jungle was filled with only the sound of insects and birds, the next it was torn apart by machine-gun fire and explosives. Panic hit instantly. The soldiers were up and firing randomly into the trees while their friends were cut down around them. The captain yelled for order, but there was too much gunfire for him to be heard.

  In the nozzle bursts amongst the trees, Church could see the Vietcong, like ghosts. They were everywhere. The captain saw them too and gave the order to retreat. Some heard, some didn’t. In the disarray that followed, a grenade blast tore apart three men.

  And then everyone was running, Church and Gabe amongst them, heads down, pounding wildly into the thick bush. Sizzling lead streamed all around. Men fell, though it was impossible to tell if the shots came from friend or foe.