Roofworld

by Christopher Fowler

  She twisted her head back at the retreating building. The dark figures had now engulfed Simon and Jay in a black, writhing mass. Suddenly the edge of a grey concrete building loomed beneath her feet, slightly too far below for her to touch the flashing gravelled rooftop with her shoe. There was a clattering noise above, like points changing, and she felt the lift and drop of a cable-car crossing a pylon. A tall steel rod whistled by on her right side, then the cable was dropping downwards again, over half-lit backstreets. Her heart was in her mouth, all thought pushed from her mind as the city flashed by in a whirling diorama.

  A steep tiled roof howled by on the left, then another. Ahead, the cable swung over another station and turned sharply to the right. She could see Robert hit the turn at tremendous speed. His body was flung out almost sideways before being whipped away into the darkness once more. Although she felt sure that she was safe, Rose clung onto her nylon belt-line with both hands.

  A dark Victorian building adorned with peeling white balustrades was fast approaching dead ahead. The cable passed over a rusting pylon set in the middle of the roof. She raised her legs instinctively, but found that the line stayed at least eight feet from the surface of the building and she was buffeted over another station, to drop sharply away toward the brightly lit streets which glistened like pulsing arteries through the city’s West End.

  At first Robert could not bring himself to open his eyes. He yelled, his stomach somersaulting as his feet struck out and found nothing but the air which screamed and wailed around him, punching at his body, blasting his mind into a half-conscious limbo. When he juddered over the first cable station his immediate thought was that the line was about to come loose. Wrenching open his eyes he forced himself to look up and watched as the sleeve passed smoothly across the cable junction and back out over the city streets.

  He looked down again as the line swung him between two tall buildings somewhere behind Tottenham Court Road and realized with astonishment that he was no longer scared. The beauty of the passing streets below, seen as if he were buzzing the city in a low-flying helicopter, surprised and delighted him.

  Ahead, the cable turned sharply away towards the city centre. He was able to swing himself around just enough to see Rose behind. Her body twisted with a slow sensual elegance as it strained against the line, the wind contouring her sweatshirt over her breasts. She had lost her jacket somewhere. Robert prayed that she had managed to hang onto the notebook. Her long legs thrust out to the left, then the right, as she rode the cable with what seemed like complete assurance.

  Robert’s nervousness briefly returned when he was suddenly wrenched sideways and downward, more violently than ever. He swung around and managed to face front just in time to see the Shaftesbury Theatre pass by at great speed just a few feet below. Experimentally, he held his arms out from his sides and found that by doing this he could control his body more easily.

  The overhead cable was actually rising now, the velocity he had gained during his journey being enough to lift and throw him along the next section of the run, picking up speed like a roller coaster car. Behind, he caught a glimpse of Rose raising her arms as she copied his movements. He laughed hard and loud, the sound competing with the noise of the wind as the cable curved away over Covent Garden, skirting the edge of the Piazza, where diners sat behind the steamed windows of expensive restaurants, or strolled across the cobbled streets, the momentum rocketing him from one perfect miniature tableau to the next like scenes in a gigantic funfair ride.

  His feet had begun to grow numb and his back muscles were starting to cramp as he shot over the Strand towards the Savoy Hotel. He could feel his jacket tearing at the armpits with each successive lift and fall. How was it, he wondered, that people on the ground did not raise their arms and point to the sky in alarm? Up here he felt visible and vulnerable, cutting a swathe across the night sky as if he were a comic-book superhero.

  And then he was sweeping in over the back of the Savoy Hotel, the tarred metal roof looming fast beneath his feet. This was the end of the run, the cable terminating here on top of a short metal rod. Robert braced his legs for the impact as the ground rushed up, but was still knocked from his feet by the force of his sudden full-stop. He lay on his back, panting and clutching his side as Rose soared in behind him. She collided hard with the roof, but managed to stay on her feet. Her mouth and eyes were wide with the surprise and exhilaration of the trip.

  ‘About time!’ exclaimed a voice behind them. ‘Where are the others?’ Robert rolled over and raised himself on one elbow. Before him stood a tall man dressed in a heavy black rollneck sweater and jeans. His creased, tanned face was framed with short blonde hair. Cobalt eyes were separated by a long, sharp nose. He was in his early thirties, handsome in a weatherbeaten way. A broad hand reached out and pulled Robert to his feet.

  ‘Somebody attacked us. One of them is dead, Jay I think,’ gasped Robert, still trying to catch his breath. ‘We didn’t see what happened to Simon or Lee.’

  Behind the blonde man, several others appeared from within a jumble of enormous aluminium ducts.

  ‘I knew this would happen. I knew it!’ The blonde man smashed his fist into the side of a large metal pipe jutting from the floor of the roof, causing it to reverberate with a hollow boom. A slim, pale woman appeared at his side and clutched at his arm.

  ‘How come you managed to make the run and they didn’t?’ Anger cracked his voice.

  ‘They had already hooked us up,’ said Rose defensively. ‘There was nothing we could do.’

  ‘So they’ll be dropped like the Toad?’ asked the pale girl.

  ‘Who knows?’ answered the blonde man. ‘It’s no longer possible to predict their movements.’ He turned back to Rose and Robert. ‘You two, I suppose you know why you were attacked?’

  ‘No, nobody’s explained anything,’ said Robert. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Walk with me a while. I think a little exchange of information would be useful.’

  The three of them headed off across the roof, while all around people resumed their work, talking in low, urgent voices.

  There seemed to be a vast amount of weaponry and equipment spread out on the rooftop. The blonde man reached the far side of the Savoy’s roof and sat down on the low concrete lip running around the edge, inviting Robert and Rose to do the same. He seemed to search the night sky, his pale eyes flicking across the hemisphere. As they sat, a bleak yellow moon finally broke the cover of cloud. The blonde man turned to them. ‘My name is Doctor Nathaniel Zalian,’ he began, ‘and you seem to have something I need.’

  Chapter 21

  Keelhauled

  At 11 p.m. the Leicester Square Video Casino was still packed with punters. Drug pushers and pickpockets roamed the lanes between the thundering electronic machines searching for fresh marks, ever vigilant for any sign of the police. Their careless-casual appearance masked heightened senses which were finely attuned to every change of pace within the dingy game room. Beyond the glass doors, the haunted eyes of the waiting addicts betrayed them to the world as their nightly need grew ever more desperate.

  Nick still held the halves of Robert’s ten-pound notes in the pocket of his filthy jeans. He was wearing dark glasses over his spiderweb tattoo. His eyes were still swollen from fighting, from crying. The Toad was dead and nothing could bring him back, but something could have been done to save him and the others. He presumed that his own life was now in danger, but somehow he could not bring himself to break his routine and stay out of the arcade.

  He was still hammering hell out of the Starbiker machine when they came for him. The two skinheads spotted his 7N Krewe jacket from the other side of the room and began to make their way between the players.

  ‘Hey, what the…?’

  The skinny Turkish punk slapped Nick on the back a second time, causing him to misfire on the video machine. Nick turned and saw the consternation in the boy’s face.

  ‘You’d better get out of ’ere, man, do
uble quick. They’re lookin’ for you.’

  Nick ducked down behind the machine, then peered over the top to see the skinheads threading their way towards him. Squeezing the Turk’s arm in silent thanks he took off, slipping around the back of the change booth and out through the doors at the side of the arcade. The alley beyond was deserted. Nick flicked the dark glasses from his face. He decided to head up into Chinatown, where he knew that he could lose himself in the crazy jumble of vegetable boxes and rubbish cans which stood in front of the restaurants there. Behind him the side door slammed back and the two skinheads emerged. He recognized one of them as Dag, a skinhead with a streak of voyeuristic sadism that allowed him to enjoy officiating at murder ceremonies for Chymes. Nick set off along the alley, trying to stay in the shadows, running lightly on the balls of his feet.

  Moments later he looked back to see that the other skinhead had vanished, leaving Dag in solitary pursuit. Confused, he ran on, out of the alley and into the light of Lisle Street, past the back of the cinema complex and up into Gerrard Street, the heart of Chinatown. Here, surrounded by people who were hovering before restaurants comparing menu prices, he was able to slow to a trot. A hundred yards behind him Dag also slowed, waiting for Nick to make a move. This far along Gerrard Street there was only one way out. He would have to exit into the lower half of Wardour Street, which was always crowded with the clubbers who patiently queued for entry into the latest night spots. That suited Nick just fine. He would have no problem losing himself among the punks, rockers, skins and Rastas who filled the street at this time of night. He was home free. Quickly he walked towards the road junction where light and people flooded the pavements.

  A sudden pain flared in his thigh. He looked behind and saw nothing, then looked down and saw the ribboned end of the thin steel dart which protruded from the top of his leg. Ahead, the other skinhead stepped out from behind a stack of wooden crates with a dart-gun in his hand. Dag had manœuvred him into a trap. Dag and his accomplice closed in as consciousness swirled away and Nick fell heavily to the pavement.

  —

  The billowing figure pulled its cloak a little tighter and stepped easily between the parapets of the two warehouse buildings. Far below, drunken laughter mixed with the muffled pounding of engines as pleasure cruisers chugged down the Thames against the tide. Dag coughed uncomfortably and caught up with his master, nervously jumping the three-foot gap which separated the two roofs.

  ‘It’s a fine night, the first of many such nights.’ The velvet voice spoke without cadence or strength, yet managed to convey a wealth of power. ‘These will be nights of cleansing for us all. They mark the end of weakness, the birth of victory over light. I wanted to thank you for your help in removing the treacherous ones from our midst, Brother. Your loyalty will not go unrewarded.’

  Dag swallowed noisily, remembering how Brother Samuel’s loyalty had been ‘rewarded’. ‘What do you want done with the bloke we picked up?’ he asked.

  ‘He will be treated most severely for his crimes. I will need your help in carrying out his punishment.’

  Dag stole a look at the black, wrathful figure next to him. The face was hidden within the cowl of the dark linen cloak. In the middle of their preparations for the assault on Zalian he had been called away from cleaning and checking the armoury by his leader, the one who went by the name of Chymes, and sent to fetch the boy with the spiderweb tattoo on his face. Now, as they walked along the south wall of the empty dockside warehouse, Chymes began to speak to his acolyte in a low monotone.

  ‘You know that we could not allow the Toad to venture back among the Insects, for he had betrayed and renounced our cause. You assisted admirably in dealing with Brother Samuel, but do you realize why he had to die?’

  Even a brain the size of Dag’s recognized the fact that it was wise not to interrupt when Chymes was employing rhetoric.

  ‘Brother Samuel thought that he had allayed my suspicions by helping to deal with the Toad. But I could see into his heart. I could see the falseness which lay there.’ Chymes reached down and prodded Dag in the chest with a bony finger.

  ‘The meddling bitch Sarah Endsleigh,’ he said suddenly, as if her name had just occurred to him for the first time. ‘When she came to me with promises of undying loyalty, it was Brother Samuel who vouched for her. He knew that the Toad fed her with information, yet he kept his mouth shut and remained her friend. He was the last link in a chain of treachery.

  ‘But now, before the week is out, all those of doubting faith will be gone, for even now there are still traitors among us. Only after the purging will we be pure enough to carry on our task.’ The hooded figure stopped and turned. ‘Now we must go and deal with Nick.’

  —

  Two young men with shaved scarred heads and tattooed faces stepped from behind a smashed chimneystack and grabbed Nick by the arms. Minutes before, the effect of the drugged dart had worn off and he had awoken, stiff with cold and sick with the realization that he had been brought up into the heart of Chymes’ dark kingdom.

  Chymes stood before him with his arms folded. Metal glinted from one of his hands. His face was shrouded by the black linen hood. At his feet, a disinterested peacock pulled at its feathers.

  ‘You were never good enough to join the Roofworld, were you, Nick?’ Chymes gave a dry, mirthless chuckle. ‘It must have hurt seeing your friends go up and leave you behind. You couldn’t be a part of it, so what did you do? You decided to sell its secret to the newspapers. What a good job we caught you before you told this reporter friend of yours anything too damaging. Refresh my memory…who was he?’

  ‘Go fuck yourself. You killed my mate, you can burn in hell.’

  ‘It’s of no consequence. I have his name written down somewhere. He was foolish enough to print his byline on the piece, I recall. Journalists crave credibility. They want to be loved so badly that they’ll put their names to anything.’ The peacock raised its head and gave a sudden startled cry.

  ‘Well, Nick,’ sighed Chymes, ‘it is time for the disintegration of solution:

  ‘ “The hot lion devours the sun in the heavens,

  And the fiery man will sweat to resolve his body,

  To carry it afar through moisture, so that

  Happily and beautifully Mercurius may issue forth.” ’

  He reached down and seized the peacock by the neck, selecting a single long plume which he plucked and passed to Dag. The skinhead approached Chymes’ new victim and forced his mouth open, then pushed the peacock feather down his throat as if helping out in a sword-swallowing act. Nick began to retch and choke as the feather passed deeper into his trachea. On either side, men held him steady. He tried to throw off his assailants as he staggered back against the chimneystack, but they clung on tight, their stocky muscular bodies slowly pulling him down toward the tarmac floor. Chymes unfolded his arms and gave a signal.

  Each time Nick rose and tried to fling the men from him, one of them pierced his hand, then his arm, then his stomach with a long steel needle until he screamed and dropped once more to the ground. In moments, the two muscular brothers had stripped him naked and tied him tight with nylon cord, leaving several hundred yards spare from a knot at his waist.

  ‘You think they ain’t got a chance against you,’ Nick bellowed, knowing that his death was now just minutes away. ‘And you’re probably right, but you’ll be stopped somehow. You call yourself a lord, you with all your fancy talk and mystic bullshit! Lord over what? A bunch of fucked-up psychopaths, junkies and crazies who’ll break into buildings, wound and maim and kill, do whatever you tell them because they need their next fix? Some fucking kingdom!’

  ‘Keelhaul him!’ The dark figure spun on its heel, cloak flaring outwards, and strode away.

  One of the young thugs pinched Nick’s face, pulling it around until it was close to his. ‘You ever been keelhauled, Nicky boy? It’s a barbaric practice. Don’t half muck you up, looks-wise.’

  Nick spat into the g
rinning face as hard as he could. The other thug kicked him viciously in the chest. He heard, rather than felt, a rib crack.

  Together, they knotted a rag across his mouth, then dragged him to the side of the building and lowered him over the low concrete lip. Wrapping the cord tightly around their arms, they allowed the kicking figure to descend, naked and now firmly gagged, down seven floors until his feet were almost touching the ground. Then, laughing, they ran back from the building’s edge, hauling Nick’s body up the concrete wall, floor by floor.

  The stippled roughness of the brick grazed away his skin, welling first with tiny pinprick drops of blood which fast turned into trickles, then rivers. Foot by agonizing foot he was raised, the flesh from his back and shoulders, face and legs tearing over the piercing, stinging brickwork. Each time he tried to kick away from the passing wall he swung back harder into it, catching and dragging, higher and higher. Soon the pain removed any strength he had left in his legs and he fell back against the wall, the soles of his feet audibly ripping as they caught on tiny spikes of stone.

  As he was hoisted over a narrow concrete ledge he swung against a window, which cracked and shattered as he struggled and butted into it. As he rose further up, the jagged glass in the top of the frame found flesh and stuck, bending and snapping off in his skin as the brothers above continued to haul in the cord.

  By the fifth floor he had bitten clean through the gag and his tongue, as he left a bloody track up the building and the bricks rasped over areas already scoured clean of skin. When he finally reached the top and they had laid him out on the surface of the roof, he had mercifully lost consciousness. He lay, a bloody skinless puppet of raked meat, barely breathing, nose shattered, face unrecognizable.

  ‘He’s no fun, is he?’ said one of the brothers, peering over the inert figure with interest. ‘Where shall we put him?’