The Malice

by Peter Newman

  Seconds later they spill into a larger chamber.

  Vesper checks herself. Old bruises have been remastered, new ones added but nothing worse than that. She sits up, one hand rubbing the back of her head, the other pulling the Navpack off her boot.

  The room is moist and smells of death. Bugs carpet the walls, crawling over each other, constant, shifting, giving glimpses of a honeycomb brick underneath. By contrast, the floor is completely clear.

  The kid takes one look before burying his face in Vesper’s coat.

  Vesper looks around for an exit, cannot see one. When she steps forward to study the walls more closely, the sword begins to hum, angry. Insects flee from the sound, flowing away, parting like a black tide. She steps back and the humming softens. Insects pour into the gap, sealing it in moments.

  She steps forward a second time, watching as the humming rises and the insects retreat. Stepping back, the actions reverse themselves.

  Leaning her shoulder and the sword’s hilt towards the wall, she makes a quick circuit of the room. The crawling creatures rush away from her like a wave, revealing a desiccated chalky structure.

  And a door.

  It opens easily at Vesper’s touch and she goes through, dragging the kid after her.

  A figure waits on the other side, shrouded in robes and mystery, her voice a hard, dry croak. ‘Who are you?’

  Vesper’s torch beam finds a face within the cowl, a mask of leather stitched to old bone. The Navpack slips from her fingers, landing with a clatter, over-loud, and going out.

  A pair of pupils glow green in the darkness. ‘Well? Name yourself.’

  ‘Vesper,’ she replies, hands fumbling towards her pocket. ‘Are you Neer?’

  ‘We’re not taking turns, child. You are a trespasser and you will answer my questions first. All of them, if you know what’s good for you. And then we’ll see what we will see, hmm?’

  She nods, then, because it’s dark, adds: ‘Okay.’

  ‘I should warn you, I’ll know if you lie to me.’ The figure moves in the dark and bones pop, reconfiguring. The kid makes a soft plopping noise as he faints. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘The Shining City. Well, not the city itself but nearby, on the outskirts. Within the protected boundary but apart from the others. On a farm.’

  ‘What do you farm?’

  ‘Goats mainly.’

  ‘Goats? Untainted goats?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Well, well. This is most unexpected. You seem well armed for a farmer.’

  Her fingers curl around the gun’s handle, finding comfort there. ‘Yes, I am. But I’m not here to fight.’

  There is a pause. ‘I believe you.’

  ‘I’m here to ask for Neer’s help.’

  ‘And why would Neer be interested in helping you?’

  ‘Because I can tell her about the north if she’s interested, and the Shining City, or I can trade with her.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. News, or … or supplies. I’ll do whatever I can but my friend is hurt and she needs help and she doesn’t have much time.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘She got injured in a battle a few days ago. Her ribs are broken. I’ve done my best but it wasn’t good enough and now she’s getting worse.’

  ‘Alright my little farmer, I’ll see what I can do. No need to cry.’

  She sniffs, self-conscious. ‘I wasn’t!’

  ‘Of course you weren’t.’

  ‘Are you Neer?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking. I’ll explain on the way.’

  Vesper stands at the bottom of the chute looking up. The kid sits in her arms, awake now, but keeping a low profile. Neer stands behind them. ‘Are you ready?’

  She shivers as Neer’s cold arms wrap around her. ‘Ready.’

  Under Neer’s robes are three square spirals of bone, two attached to her hips, one to her spine. As she steps onto the chute, the spirals unfurl, becoming extra legs. Longer than her own, they straighten, lifting all three of them off the ground.

  Vesper shivers again. On her back, the sword’s wings twitch and an eye cracks open, the thinnest of slits. Trapped in its sheath, it shakes angrily between the girl and the half-alive woman.

  Neer chuckles, though her head pulls back from the sword quickly enough.

  Without talking, they ascend. Silence punctuated by bones clicking on metal and the sword’s rage, muffled.

  At the top, she deposits her cargo and Vesper stumbles away several paces. By the time she turns, Neer’s extra limbs have lowered her to the ground, retracting beneath the robes again, out of sight.

  ‘What are you?’

  ‘My name is Ferrencia, and I was the Surgeon General to the Uncivil, greatest of her Necroneers.’

  Most of the words pass her by, save one. She draws her gun and points it at the half-alive. ‘The Uncivil … You’re an infernal!’

  ‘No, no, no. I’m not the girl I used to be, that’s true enough. But an infernal? The very idea!’

  The gun continues to point at her. ‘You look like an infernal!’

  ‘Seen a lot of them have you? Don’t answer that. What you call an infernal is something from another world. And no person, not me and certainly not you can understand what that is. And besides, infernals don’t talk. They don’t need to.’

  ‘The First does.’

  ‘Clever little farmer, aren’t you? Well, yes, the First does, but I think it’s the exception, not the rule.’

  ‘So, you’re like a Dogspawn?’

  Neer folds her arms. ‘I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. My essence is human, through and through. It just happens to be attached to a few benign fragments of the Uncivil’s essence.’

  ‘But your face …’

  ‘Is dead. Most of me is. I was old when the Uncivil recruited me and I’d look a lot worse than this if it wasn’t for her intervention.’

  ‘If you’re not a half-breed, and you’re not an infernal, what are you?’

  ‘A human being, like you.’ Her hand turns, describing circle after circle. ‘Just with a few more years and a some major augmentations. But in here,’ she taps her head, ‘or, if you’re the sentimental type, here,’ she taps her heart, ‘I’m unchanged.’

  Vesper puts the gun away. ‘But I thought the infernals take over people’s bodies.’

  ‘Some do, like the First. The Usurper and its minions were famous for it but the Uncivil wasn’t like them. She believed in independence. She dealt with us one by one, listened to our needs, and if we could help her, she satisfied them.’

  ‘You make her sound like a person.’

  Neer’s smile is small, her face too set to allow anything more. ‘Do I now? She wasn’t. I didn’t understand her, even after years of working on her. But at least with the Uncivil I knew where I stood and that’s a lot more than I can say for most.’ Her eyes go pointedly to the sword on Vesper’s back, then to Vesper herself. ‘Hmm?’

  They cross the shadowed courtyard, under a giant head’s glassy gaze. Tentacles drag a battered torso across their path. Vesper and the kid don’t even flinch.

  ‘Our little show didn’t fool you then?’

  ‘It did at first but –’ she reaches down to stroke the kid ‘– when we got close we saw through it.’

  ‘Hmm. Used to be Necrotech powered the whole thing. It was really something then. But each time, a little essence leaked away and even I couldn’t find a way to make the seals perfect.’

  A ramp waits for them, leaning against the barrier. Neer strides up and unfolds a rope ladder, dropping it over the other side.

  Vesper chews her lip, and scurries down after her.

  It is dark now, stars pushing through the fading film of blue, illuminating little. The huge yellow stalks have paled to grey, gatekeepers to a hundred hidden threats.

  Vesper listens, wondering if there are hunters nearby, doing the same. Sounds come to her, unfamiliar, nocturnal calls and mov
ements and … something else … a raised voice, manic.

  Neer slows to a stop. ‘I take it your friend is that way?’

  But Vesper is too busy running to answer.

  *

  The running figure catches Samael’s eye, too fast for an animal, too fluid for a machine. A competitor, one of many known to him: Hangnail. Anger rises and Scout howls in empathy.

  His detour has been costly, the head-start given him by the Man-shape spent. There is nothing to do but give chase. He sets off and Scout keeps pace, tail waving like a bloody flag.

  He and Scout race Hangnail to the ever open gates of New Horizon.

  From a distance the city is characterful. Ruined turrets lean against rusting walls like a crowd of merry drunks. The comings and goings of its denizens appear to obey an algorithm, abstract and colourful. From a distance imagination can paper over the cracks with more palatable illusions.

  Sadly, both runners make quick work of the distance.

  A stab of memory makes Samael stumble. It is quick, barely even an image, gone before he can process it. He stops and stares at the city with renewed contempt, paralysed by the desire to destroy.

  Hangnail runs on, extending its lead.

  But Samael doesn’t notice, held in place by thought shards and feelings, disconnected, disconnecting.

  Hangnail runs on, passing through New Horizon’s great southern gates and beyond, out of sight.

  From further behind Samael comes a broken chorus of shouts and shuffles, burping, popping, boasting and growling. He doesn’t notice that either.

  Something taps against his armoured thigh. No sensation reaches him but the ringing of claw on metal draws his attention. Scout sits at his feet, one paw raised, uncertain.

  He pats its mangy head and it whines, dashing back the way they came to freeze, arrow-straight, head pointing at distant shapes. Samael doesn’t need to turn round, using their shared vision to see the new threat.

  Gutterface and the Backwards Child travel in full force, close but not together. On one side, a motley crew of muscle-heavy Usurperkin, bearing their diminutive leader above their heads. On the other, a pick-and-mix of the most loathsome infernals, bulging in the skins of rodents and the bodies of chicks burst untimely from dead eggs, all clustered around Gutterface, rubbing against it, affectionate and sickening.

  With new incentive, Samael runs and soon the noise of the pursuing infernals is lost to the discordant music of the city.

  On New Horizon’s streets, people cleave together in packs or move quickly, heads down, avoiding eye contact. Skin is more colourful than clothes here, purples, greens, yellows, oranges and browns stark against pale fabrics. Bruises mark many faces, decorative. And chains, physical or otherwise, link slaves to masters. Samael’s eyes cannot help but see them all.

  He is an oddity here and they know it. Neither full infernal nor half-breed in any sense they understand. They have heard of Seraph Knights and memories of the Knights of Jade and Ash still have power enough to disturb sleep but Samael falls between the gaps. Neither one or the other, somehow mocking both.

  A not quite anything, an ugly mystery.

  In New Horizon, the rules are simple. If in doubt: run or hide or die.

  And everyone old enough to think for themselves plays by the rules.

  For Samael, it is a strange novelty, he is used to being despised rather than feared. The streets clear for him as he walks, the sensible slipping back to their holes of residence, the young watching from alleys or the empty sockets of tortured houses.

  A reluctant circle of people breaks at his approach, meat traders and flesh merchants keen to save their own skins. They leave a slave to shiver alone in the road, abandoned. Cables tie him to a metal spike, knots too complex for quick release.

  Samael ignores the whimpering as he passes. Scout does not, stopping to sniff. In response, the slave retreats to the other side of the spike and cords dig deep into his neck, holding him in tight orbit.

  Saliva collects around sharp teeth, hanging in strands, thick and stringy. A Dogspawn and its belly growl together. Jaws open, ready to grind against a spindly leg.

  Samael turns a corner at the end of the main street.

  Tail low, Scout yelps and dashes after his master, slobber swinging back and forth from an open mouth.

  The slave experiences a moment of relief, a positive blip in a life filled with despair. It does not last.

  Meanwhile, unaware of the many travesties playing out around him, Samael marches on. There is no sign of Hangnail, just street after street of misery. Hunger haunts a hundred faces, sharpening eyes and hardening hearts. Scrawny bodies curl in gutters, too weak to complain. Around them scavengers collect, licking lips, stirring juices.

  A round-shouldered woman calls to Samael, asking him to stop.

  He ignores her.

  She bustles into his path, holding out wide flat hands that sit like lollipops on bony wrists. ‘Who are you?’

  He steps to the left.

  She moves to match him.

  Scout arrives. He does not like the way she reaches towards his master.

  Samael steps to the right.

  Again, she steps in his path. ‘In the name of the—’

  Her sentence cuts off in a flurry of fur and teeth. As the two struggle on the floor, she manages to get out a word: ‘Demagogue.’

  ‘Stop,’ orders Samael.

  Scout looks up, gore-caked muzzle at odds with his innocent expression, an unidentified chunk badly hidden in his mouth.

  ‘Leave her.’

  Scout ducks his head, contrite, sloping off to gnaw on his trophy.

  Samael wants to move on, leave this mess of a place far behind but something, an impulse, stops him. He leans down, examining the bite mark.

  The woman props herself up to speak through pain-clenched teeth. ‘The Demagogue demands your presence.’

  ‘I don’t answer to the Demagogue.’

  She laughs, despite her discomfort. ‘Of course you do. We all do.’

  ‘I’m just passing through.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what you were doing or where you were going. You’re off to see the Demagogue.’ She offers him her hand. ‘Now lift me up will you? If we’re late, neither of us will get to see the dawn.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Hunters gather, lean strips of shadow detaching themselves from the greater darkness. One by one they assemble on the edge of the forest of stalks, creeping forward under the stars. Wonderland looms before them. All know the history of the place, the grim and gory stories. Hearts flutter at the thought of them, bowels stir.

  ‘We should go back,’ whispers one.

  ‘Ssh!’ says another.

  ‘We lost Jacks to the buzzers. We ain’t going back to the First empty-handed.’ Adds a third.

  The others have the good sense to stay quiet.

  A hunter crouches down, fingers probing the churned earth. Tracks are found, two pairs of human feet and a set of hoof prints, small. He inches forward, led by the marks until hands reach smooth stone. He sighs. ‘They went in. Another feast for the Wonderland.’

  ‘That’s it then,’ says their leader, ‘we’re too late.’

  Shadows retreat, turning for home.

  They are nearly invisible again when a belch rings out, rounded and rich. A stifled giggle follows.

  The shadows pause, fanning out, searching. They find a piece of panelling leaning against a wall, and a figure propped up behind it. As they draw closer to the source of the sound they hear a woman’s voice, firm.

  ‘I’m dead. I’m dead because of a damned burp.’ A laugh bursts from her mouth. Four of the hunters move into position around her. ‘It’s not funny. It’s not!’ She giggles again. ‘Stop laughing! You’re a servant of the Winged Eye on a sacred mission. Act like one!’

  The hunters exchange glances. Several shrug. The nearest one pulls away the cover.

  Duet sits as she was left, medicine bag in her lap, swor
d laying parallel to her leg, unsheathed.

  Before the hunters can strike, brightness shines from her visor, blinding, cutting a wedge from the nighttime. The closest to her gasp, clutching at faces and raising their arms. Those further back aim dartbows, trying to thread shots between their friends.

  Metal spines spit through the air, finding new homes in the wall and Duet’s armour. A few catch the flailing limbs of dazzled hunters, burrowing deeper to slip toxins into bloodstreams, paralysing, swift.

  ‘I’m not –’ she begins, hacking at the legs of the two nearest ‘– going to –’ In her weakened state, strikes that would dismember, merely cut deep. ‘Pitiful!’ she shouts, interrupting herself. ‘Is that the best you can do? You’ve always been a disappointment to us.’ Duet shakes her head. ‘Shut up, traitor. You’re not here. I killed you! Shut up!’

  Two hunters scream, hobbling out of range, the others regroup, quickly recovering from their initial shock. Duet rages in the background, monologuing while they confer.

  ‘Let’s leave her,’ hisses one.

  ‘Yeah,’ says the second. ‘Wonderland’s already taken her mind. It’ll be coming back to take her body. That’s how it is! That’s how it happened to my mother’s father’s brother! It ain’t gonna happen to me.’

  The third is unimpressed. ‘Crap to your stories and crap on your ancestors. We’re bringing home a prize. Look at her, she’s lost it. She can’t even get up. We can take her if we move together.’

  Dartbows are swapped for knives and short sticks. As a pack now, the hunters reengage.

  Duet watches them, letting her sword tip rest on the ground. ‘I think I can take two with me. Or maybe three. Two? Three? I’m not sure.’ A giggle forces its way out and then she half sings, ‘Two or three, three or four, I’m altogether not quite sure.’ She slaps herself on the side of the head with her free hand. ‘Why can’t I stop talking? And why don’t these sorry fucks get on with it!’

  The lead hunter raises his hand. ‘On three. One … two …’

  A new arrival gives him pause. Something approaches fast from Wonderland, footsteps sounding like gunshots, and behind them, a tall, robed shape, inhuman eyes flashing from a deep hood.