Roofworld

by Christopher Fowler

  The realization dawned that she had left the roof without collecting one of the walkie-talkies. Suspended from the overhead cable by the line extending from her waist, she hung like a stalled nativity angel above the deserted road.

  Twisting her shoulder down as far as it would go, Rose pulled at the nylon sack on her back until she had managed to open it. Several items had cascaded on the ground before she managed to locate and remove the small emergency kit. Its contents were a disappointment—bandages, salve, matches—nothing to cope with the present situation. The weather-worn struts of the pylon supporting her clattered suddenly and the line dropped a foot. Involuntarily she released a shout of surprise. Zalian had warned her about the condition of the run. Who knew how much weight and movement it could stand before collapsing?

  She was half-heartedly attempting to wipe medicinal lubrication onto the cable running beneath the sleeve of her line-belt when she heard Chymes’ men pounding across the rooftops ahead of her. Looking up she saw them, running in directionless confusion across the flat broad roof opposite, less than fifty yards away. Her heart missed several beats as she realized that they must have seen her. Although their guns were drawn, they seemed to be more concerned with firing at a running man in the roadway below. She looked back down at the figure and quickly recognized the loping gait and above all the protruding ears. She was about to call out his name, but succeeded in stopping herself just in time. If he turned around now, his pursuers would surely trap him in a razor-sharp hail of metal. She was forced to watch, agonized, as her one hope of rescue retreated into the distance.

  Moments later there was a muffled retort followed by a hiss and another line was fired across hers. It struck a point on the opposite wall and locked. Where the two cables crossed there was a sudden vibration as someone dropped onto the bisecting line.

  ‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to hang about in the street at night?’ She turned to find Simon swinging from the cord with a demented grin on his face, the rags of his clothes fluttering in the wind like those of an ancient phantom pirate.

  ‘Sweet Jesus, I thought I was going to die up here,’ she gasped. ‘I’m stuck.’

  ‘Thought you must be. You looked like a Christmas-tree fairy from a distance, just dangling there.’ Simon’s lanky body swung to face hers. Grabbing her around the waist with one arm he lifted her up and unclipped her belt-line with his free hand. ‘Keep still,’ he muttered through gritted teeth. ‘I don’t want to drop you.’ He clipped the freed cable into his own steel sleeve and lowered her, letting the weight increase on the line until he was sure it was safe. As he did so, the line from which Rose had been suspended gave way as the station pylon behind them buckled and fell from its position on the roof.

  ‘Another thirty seconds and I’d have crossed the great divide,’ said Rose, peering down into the roadway with alarm as the metal clanged on concrete far below.

  ‘You’ve progressed a long way since I last saw you. Been taking night classes?’ Simon burst into a fierce grin as he released the brake on his sleeve. ‘Apart from travelling on a condemned route you’re lucky to be still in one piece. Chymes’ men are crawling all over the area. There seems to be some kind of gathering taking place. I think he’s getting ready to make his move.’

  Rose clung to the chain around Simon’s bony hips and together they swooped off on the new cable to the comparative safety of a darkened sidestreet. ‘Thanks for the rescue,’ she called into his back. ‘Where were you heading?’

  ‘To headquarters,’ he shouted. ‘There are massacres taking place all over the bloody city. Chymes is starting to cull the pack. What does Zalian think he’s playing at? Why hasn’t he come up with anything?’

  ‘He’s getting back into drugs. He’s convinced himself that Sarah has deserted him to be with Chymes.’

  ‘Bullshit. It was because she was crazy about Zalian that she agreed to go and spy on Chymes in the first place. It was just too bad that she was found out. He should be out there with his own men instead of sitting around pining for his bloody girlfriend.’

  The cable rasped and rolled as they crested the concrete peaks of the city’s financial institutions, skimming over the streets like nocturnal dragonflies.

  ‘I don’t want to interfere,’ shouted Rose, ‘but it seems that unless we can get Zalian to snap out of it, someone is going to have to take charge from him.’ She clutched tightly to Simon as they lifted and fell over a creaking station pylon.

  ‘It should be either Lee or Spice,’ Simon called back. ‘If anybody understands the Roofworld half as well as Zalian, it’s them. Although there’s one other person who seems to know the territory just as well as Nathaniel.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Chymes.’

  ‘Don’t you think of joining him!’ cried Rose. ‘We hardly have anyone left as it is.’

  Far behind them, the broiling mass of Chymes’ disciples had recovered from the intrusion of the outsider at their pre-battle meeting and now awaited the signal from their leader which would herald the start of their final attack.

  Chapter 38

  Imperator Rex

  Chymes liked to hold his meetings in the darkest hour before the dawn. His men appeared ill-at-ease in their black tunics. Some wore silken sashes and badges. A few wore black masks, also made of silk. Their dress suggested a uniformity and discipline which they did not, however, possess. They fidgeted on the pale concrete of the vast open roof and complained as they waited for their master to arrive and deliver his speech. The darkness of their surroundings was lifted only by the twin orbs of light perching high in wrought-iron holders which glowed with a pale green fire on either side of the speech platform.

  At either end of the great upturned billiard table that was Battersea Power Station a pair of vast fluted chimneys stood, each one rising over three hundred feet into the air. In the blackness of the bitter night they soared like colossal guardians, champions of a forgotten machine age. The white vapour which had long since ceased to pour from them was smoke-washed from sulphurous origins, making this the perfect place for Chymes to impress his creed upon the Order of the New Age.

  Presently the Imperator himself appeared, resplendent in a robe of dull gold leaf. It glittered and rustled with a faint metallic sound as he took his place on the stand. Gradually the talking died away and all eyes turned to the single standing figure on the platform.

  ‘In the name of the Lord of the Universe, in the name of Isis,’ he began, the sonorous boom of his voice reaching to the very back of the gathering, ‘I stand here before the members of this order as we prepare for our ultimate triumph.’ His baleful eyes roamed across the assembly as if challenging every person present to defy his attention.

  ‘I have talked before of the aims of our order. I have mentioned the need to remove all obstacles which stand in the path of our success. The old Roofworld which so many of you chose to leave has outlived its time. Who of us now shares Doctor Zalian’s vision of peaceful equality, an order offering sanctuary from the cold harsh world below? We all know what happens to the weak creatures in the flock, my friends. They are devoured by the strong, absorbed by those who prefer the liberation of power.

  ‘Remember this: the world you left behind on the ground has gone forever. Faith, compassion, tolerance, conscience—these are qualities which have become as outmoded in the modern city as the pencil is by the computer.’ He glanced from one blank face to the next as he continued his speech. ‘No longer is there any need for those below to care about the weak, the poor, the sick, because for the first time in the long history of this city, there is nobody left to care.

  ‘Zalian calls our order corrupt, but when did he last look at the society which exists below and at what it has become? It is now a society of jackals, not a chain as strong as its weakest link, but a chain made entirely of strong links, because the weak ones have all been cast aside. Where once we took care of our people in the name of the Empire, now each of us stan
ds alone. On that point, Doctor Zalian and I agree.’ An angry murmur passed through the gathering. Chymes raised his hand for silence. His polished steel fingers shone a ghostly green in the light of the twin lamps.

  ‘But Zalian thinks that it is man’s greed which has caused this change. He is wrong. I shall tell you why the society below our feet is no longer fit to govern itself. It is because the purity of our national spirit has been made impure and has been tainted with adulterations. Foreigners now rule our land. And it is time for us to purge the impurities from the rotting carcass. We must cleanse and transform. We must correct.

  ‘Some of you think that our rituals and our symbols have been mere empty gestures. You are wrong. Each has been a point along a path of spiritual discipline which will allow us to supersede the most barbaric and corrupt social orders. Hidden within the Fire of the Sages is the substance which will transform us into the emissaries of the New Age. By taking control of the Roofworld, our metamorphosis will be complete. Only then can we turn our attention to the purification of the ground. Tomorrow night the final rituals will take place. The twelve key members of Zalian’s order will be sacrificed. The doctor and his Roofworld will be destroyed. And the New Age will have begun.’

  Chymes took a pace back and surveyed his audience. It was clear that his passionate vision of a ruthless and pure new society was not shared by many. In reality, few had grasped any understanding of his motives and even fewer realized that Chymes’ final conquest would be accomplished by some kind of supernatural intervention that he had yet fully to explain. All his disciples really understood was that Chymes rewarded their loyalty and that in the struggle for the control of their domain they had wisely joined up with the strongest side. They had seen the shape of the opposition and for them victory was now a foregone conclusion. Chymes strode away across the roof. They may not have seen the full picture now, but eventually his people would be made to understand. The old order on the ground would fall, slowly at first, dividing and transforming from within. And then, finally, there would occur the resurrection of a collective national psyche, and a single flawless shining light of reason.

  And Imperator Chymes would stand as its creator.

  They would thank him one day, all of them.

  Saturday 20 December

  Chapter 39

  Illumination

  DAILY MAIL DECEMBER 20 SATURDAY

  It’s a farce!

  Police bungle ‘Rooftop Rambo’ cover-up

  London’s maniac sniper has struck again. There are now five people dead, including a reporter, yet police officials continue to deny the existence of a crazed gunman lurking on London’s rooftops.

  All five victims were gunned down in cold blood earlier this week as they went about their business in the city. So far no date has been set for a public inquest.

  But now the police may have to admit that there has been an official cover-up. In a statement made early yesterday evening, Detective Chief Inspector Ian Hargreave, the outspoken, controversial officer responsible for last year’s ‘Leicester Square Vampire’ fiasco, told press officials that there was no need to alert the public to the possible danger of a killer on the loose.

  Gang warfare

  ‘We have every reason to believe that these killings were the result of powerplay between gangland rivals,’ said a visibly distraught Hargreave. ‘The reporter who died had close associations with one of these gangs and his death was a reprisal for revealing secret information.’

  But senior Yard officials are far from satisfied with the progress of the investigation. Now an enquiry may be set up to find out:

  WHY the press were denied information access

  WHY it is taking so long to identify the bodies

  HOW the victims were secretly smuggled away

  WHO is the real suspect behind the slaughter

  So far there have been over two hundred separate sightings of the sniper reported to overworked police by the general public.

  This morning London Transport reported a reduction in the number of people travelling into the West End for their Christmas shopping. ‘I’m buying my grandchildren’s presents locally,’ said Mrs Elizabeth Spragg of Shepherd’s Bush. ‘You never know who could be up there watching and waiting with a sawn-off shotgun.’

  SEE: Rooftop Rambo’s Private Arsenal; Is He Using Weapons Like These? Centre spread

  ‘What a load of inaccurate, scaremongering rubbish,’ said Janice Longbright, screwing the newspaper into a ball and aiming it at the wastebasket. ‘If they could see the state of the victims they wouldn’t wonder why it’s taken so long to identify them. Where are you going now?’

  ‘To the library, to test out a theory,’ said Hargreave, pulling on his overcoat. The dark rings beneath his eyes attested to the fact that he had been working at the office for most of the night. He had managed to conduct a number of interviews with relatives of the deceased, but in each case the story was the same. None of the victims had been seen by their families for the past two years. All had been officially reported missing, their files remaining open and unresolved for want of further information.

  Hargreave rooted in his jacket for another cigarette, but found only an empty packet. He sighed irritably. It was typical that Janice did not smoke. She smiled sympathetically at him, her auburn hair tumbling around a broad face glowing with a ruddy, wholesome sheen. She looked as if she was about to leap up and play a game of badminton. Endless cups of vile black coffee had helped to give him the nervous energy he needed for the day ahead and he had a feeling that he would need to call upon every reserve before the day was through. ‘As long as you’re here, why don’t you come along with me? I’d like your opinion on something. You might be able to tell me whether I’m going completely mad.’

  They left police headquarters together, breath frosting in unison as they walked arm in arm, no longer caring who saw.

  ‘They’re taking the investigation away from me if I haven’t come up with the goods by the time of their bloody press conference.’

  ‘When’s that?’

  ‘Three o’clock this afternoon.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll have anything to show by then?’

  ‘I’ll let you decide,’ said Hargreave with a wry smile. ‘It took me a long time to get any kind of an angle on this whole business. That’s because I’ve been approaching the case from a different perspective. All along I’ve felt less concerned with the actual physical characteristics of the crimes and more bothered by the underlying motives for committing them.’

  Briskly they marched up the steps of the public library and through the double doors into a damp, white-tiled corridor.

  ‘When I came to enter the details of the first victim in the computer, I named the file Icarus. Right from the start, there seemed to be something ancient and mythical about the murders. It was as if each slaying was being carried out according to some grand masterplan. The silt, the sulphur, the connection with wildfowl, there were ritual elements that no modern explanation could account for.’

  Hargreave led Janice down a flight of narrow wooden steps into the basement of the library, where most of the reference books had been transferred onto hard disc. The cool, dimly lit room was deserted. He seated himself at a Formica-topped table and switched on the nearest computer console. Immediately the monitor glowed into life and began to run an autocheck through its system.

  ‘It was Cleopatra’s Needle that put me on the right track. I began to check into the customs of the ancient Egyptians. Remember we talked about Anubis? Well, Anubis has a Greek equivalent in Hermes and from Hermes we get a series of writings, or Hermetica, which place a Greek philosophy in an Egyptian setting. These writings are works of revelation which deal particularly with theology and the occult and they gave rise to all manner of bizarre secret societies, including this one….’ Hargreave consulted the index menu on the console and typed in the code he required. He directed Janice’s attention to the screen.

 
*HERMETIC ORDER OF THE GOLDEN DAWN*

  SECRET CHIEFS OF THE ISIS-URANIA TEMPLE

  FOUNDED LONDON 1888 BY WILLIAM WYNN WESTCOTT, LONDON CORONER WITH KEEN INTEREST IN OCCULT SCIENCES

  / INITIATES REQUIRED TO STUDY THROUGH GRADES OF NEOPHYTE, ZELATOR, THEORICUS, PRACTICUS, PHILOSOPHUS.

  / MEETINGS HELD AT MONTHLY INTERVALS, WITH SPECIAL ASSEMBLIES AT THE TIMES OF THE EQUINOXES.

  / STUDY SUBJECTS INCLUDED:

  ASTROLOGICAL SYMBOLS

  ZODIAC AND SEVEN PLANETS

  CIPHERS

  HEBREW ALPHABET

  TWELVE HOUSES OF HEAVEN

  TAROT

  ALCHEMICAL AND TALISMANIC SYMBOLS

  ORDER OF THE ELEMENTS

  SEE ALSO/

  *Freemasons

  *Rosicrucians

  *Alchemists

  ‘I don’t see any present-day relevance here,’ said Janice, tipping forward in her chair. ‘Surely this sort of mumbo-jumbo went out of vogue at the end of the Victorian era.’

  ‘It did, you’re absolutely right,’ said Hargreave excitedly. ‘But it’s currently enjoying a major revival. Suppose another such society now exists in a different form, one which fits the fashionable theories of the present day? Watch.’ He moved the cursor beneath the final word on the monitor and pressed ‘Return’. The screen cleared, then filled with copy. ‘I followed every lead, the history of every secret organization imaginable, but I kept coming back to the practice of alchemy. It’s been around for at least a couple of thousand years in one form or another. The art of transformation, both physical and spiritual. The idea is that you transform an impure, unrefined substance into a perfect, pure form via certain key rituals and ceremonies which purge out the undesirable elements.

  ‘This pure form can be a tangible object, like a chunk of gold, or it can simply be an elevated state of mind—a psychic plane.’ He traced a finger to the middle of the screen.