An ugly, jelly-wet digit lapped at his nape, and he almost screamed with the unpleasantness of it. Then that sighing voice spoke once more, echoing inside his skull. “Dear me, dear, dear, dear… Whatever shall we do with you?” The minutest titter. “I think I’ll start with flaying that pretty face off.”
Jack rounded a corner, bright spots of colour exploding before his eyes, giddy with nausea, then screeched once again as yet another ugly prod thrust into his head, this one familiar.
His newfound second sight told him that he was being followed, an internal sonar blip that throbbed in his bowels. But he didn’t dare look back, not once. If he did, and saw that smouldering smile behind him, he would die. Die before he hit the floor.
“Get back here and finish what you started, worm!” roared Barry, a disembodied echo in the eternal space inside Jack’s head.
Jack flashed past a convoy of NYPD squad cars barrelling down the street back towards Forty Sixth, ignoring the still-scrabbling masses of fleeing people around him, and clutched at his ears. “Stay out of my head!” he screeched aloud.
The pandemonium around him was such that nobody paid him any attention.
He kept going, placing one foot in front of the other, slowly regaining control of his limbs, feeling the raw screaming agony of his muscles, begging to stop, not caring for his fate. His lungs were ablaze, each breath a battle.
All that kept him going were the creeping shivers that climbed his back, as though the suited man were brushing the nape of his neck with his fingertips, caressing, as a serial killer might in a B-movie before getting to work with the knife.
“What was the old fool’s plan? Save the world and be home in time for apple pie? I can’t believe they sent him, of all Highcourt’s goons. Not only is he far too weak for the likes of me, the stupid goat never does his homework. He’s far too late to save you now.”
Jack groaned, certain his brain would implode from the strain. Each intrusion, each prod, stretched and tore the unseen fabric holding him together, a fleshy twine not meant for meddling.
“Come now, don’t be so shy. Talk to dear old Mr Harper.” The voice took on an ethereal banshee wail. “I’ve so many questions!”
He was being played with. He knew the man could have been on him in a moment and dispatched Jack before he could turn around, if his pursuer had wanted. These men, other-worlders, whatever they were, moved too fast to be matched by even Olympic athletes.
It wasn’t until he heard the squeal of rending metal behind him that he finally stopped, and turned. For a moment he couldn’t process what he was seeing, a vast mass of twisted aluminium and glass in the distance, catapulting through the air in a shower of blue and red light.
Then he realised that one of the squad cars had been cut to ribbons, still travelling at forty miles per hour as four razor-sharp claws tore it and its occupants like gift ribbon. The shower of metal and glass hurtled into the masses of stupefied bystanders back on Forty Sixth, revealing the clawed monster in the middle of the street, a murderous sneer on his lips, claws splayed out to either side.
The other squad cars screeched to a stop before him and the officers leapt out behind the open doors, pistols drawn. Each bellowed for him to put his hands on his head and “Drop the knives!”
Jack had time to notice the suited man roll his eyes and fix them with a withering stare. By the time the man had surged forth in a blur of red and black, and the shooting started, a hand gripped Jack roughly by the collar.
“Wait, wait, wait!” Jack yelled, hands over his head.
The hand jerked him roughly. “Shudap, you idiot, it’s me!”
Jack blinked and caught sight of Barry slumped beside him, white-faced and panting. He looked like death itself.
“How did you—?”
“He’s playing cat and mouse, but I’m not out for the count,” Barry wheezed. He staggered, and Jack caught Barry in his arms, all the wind knocked out of him by the Scot-but-not’s shocking weight.
“Yeah, sure,” he said. “Now what?”
“Run.”
“Run?”
“Bloody run, you fool. I was wrong. We’ve got to re-think this.”
“What happened to ‘saving the bloody world’?”
Barry shook his head, gripping Jack’s shoulder so hard he winced. “He’s not supposed to be here. Not him. And he’s… so strong. This is all further ahead than I thought.” He cursed. “We’re in real trouble here. A clock’s ticking down somewhere.”
“Where do we go?”
“Anywhere. Away.”
They both snapped their heads up to the sound of screaming. The gunfire had stopped abruptly. Jack saw a blur of squad cars covered with streaks of red and gristle, and a glimpse of those wide staring eyes. Yet more sirens were approaching from all directions, under a minute away.
A strange, retarded sound escaped Jack’s mouth as he felt that other presence withdraw from his mind, like fingers abruptly yanked free. He fought collapse one last time, and hauled Barry to his feet, ignoring fresh pain in his back as something popped. Together, they staggered away into the anonymous depths of Manhattan, away from the carnage.
8
Harper wiped a shower of freshly-cleaved cop from his face and sighed. Those stains would never come out.
All around him were littered the remains of two of the squad cars, cut clean along the longitudinal axis like engineer’s cross-section blueprints. Half a human, sliced just as cleanly, still sat in one of the passenger seats, an expression of slight surprise on his face.
Harper pulled a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and spat into it, dabbing daintily at his Armani shirt, t then rubbing with more vigour.
Vaguely he perceived the hundreds of stupefied fools, fixated on him as he stood there amidst his work. But as usual, they seemed so far away, so far beneath him—so much less real than him—that it was hard to pay them any mind.
So had it been for, what, half a century? All this time planning, moving the pieces into place, waiting for the signal to start the process; every moment had required immense reservoirs of patience.
It had been slow, but so very easy, to rise above the masses, to manipulate and build an unseen empire. A few payoffs, some wise investments, a handful of strategic threats, and the deal was done.
If it hadn’t been for the meddler and his trusty new sidekick, it would be over by now. A few hitters he could manage, but this… maybe the humans had found out the plan somehow. The Web did strange things, after all, and took no sides. But if Kaard was here, that meant the game was up. Something had sent him.
Harper would have to act fast.
He shook his head at the sight of the unmoved spots of blood on his shirt.
Definitely stained.
Rolling his eyes, he strolled around the side of the remaining squad car, ignoring the scattering flocks of people ahead of him. More sirens were almost upon him, but he would make time to take a little pleasure.
One of the officers was crawling back from the shrapnel that had once been the passenger door, his arm reduced to a ragged slab of meat. Shaking with shock, blubbering as a child looked upon a creaking bedroom wardrobe at night, his pathetic shuffling sent a shiver running along Milton’s spine. He unsheathed his claws as he approached.
It was a gruff ox of a man, mid-fifties with a bushy salt-and-pepper moustache and pot belly to match. The kind of unshakable pillar that kept on ticking over during school shootings and national disasters because it was their duty.
There he lay, open mouthed and weeping, covered in his own urine.
Harper didn’t wait for the begging to start. That always ruined it. He struck in a single downward slash, and let his claws do their work. He didn’t do it for the bloodshed, but for the fear and pain; the delicious momentary pulse of abject horror that tasted so good, so good.
It was interesting to hear an entire human body unzipping. They almost seemed to burst, someti
mes. The sound was that of two giant pieces of Velcro being wrenched apart.
Harper closed his eyes and allowed himself a moment to savour the spray against his cheeks. If his apparel was already stained then he might as well loosen up a little. He groaned with the succulence of it.
Then the sirens came sharply to his attention. He had seconds left before they rounded the corner.
Lucky these ants can’t see but an inch in front of their faces.
With the kind of speed that would have made him a blur to the remaining bystanders, he left the middle of the street and the rubble field of twisted metal. As soon as he crossed over two blocks he sensed the crowds resume their same old drudgery, and with each step thereafter he slowed his pace. When he met a gaggle of tourists on a night-tour of the sights, he fell right into step with them.
For a moment he held his heels aloft, ready for flight, but then the first back-up NYPD cruiser blared past him, heading for Forty Sixth.
Blind as moles.
He kept walking until he no longer heard any gabbling about “something freaky over at Barnes & Noble”, or “terrorists carving people up around the corner”, then ducked into another payphone booth.
Despite himself, he patted his jacket and pants in search of change. I’ve been here too long, he thought, grimacing. What was he hoping to find in his pockets, anyway? You didn’t carry a lot of quarters when you were in the top one-percent.
He flexed his index finger such that the fingernail slid forth into a slot and immediately heard an electronic sizzle from the receiver. Closing his eyes, he scoured the primitive cyberspace, found the connection he wanted, and got a dial tone.
The call picked up to the sound of the same dead-pan voice from earlier. “Yes?”
“Well?”
A pause. Perhaps a glimmer of nervousness. “No progress. We’re meeting resistance everywhere.”
Harper took the receiver away from his ear and drew a long, steadying breath. “I don’t care about the VIPs anymore. We can afford to lose a few.”
“But we’re still missing more than half—”
“I said forget it. They can vanish for all I care. What matters is getting things in motion. Tell me the other Beacons are ready.”
“Like I said, you just have to pull the trigger. You’re there, right?”
Something loosened in Milton’s black heart. “I got my own problems.” He wasn’t inclined to blubber like the humans, but even demons had their boogeymen. “Keep things together.”
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes!” Harper spat, and threw down the receiver. He stepped from the booth and headed south. He no longer cared for cops. They would never find him.
Yet, despite himself, hating the compulsion and snarling all the while, he couldn’t help throwing a cautious look over his shoulder.
Those bastards are still out there.
9
“Stop here,” Barry gasped, pointing through a ratty chain-link fence, indicating a dumpster spilling over with cardboard.
Jack groaned with the effort of stalling their forward momentum. Barry’s hulking form seemed to possess some greater inertia than ordinary matter, resisting impetus, as though Jack were pushing against an engine gunned in the opposite direction.
Together they stumbled against the dumpster and slumped, wheezing and spluttering.
The sirens still wailed in the distance, but it seemed that they had failed to track the suited man; no more shots had been fired.
With time to finally breathe, the bubble of thoughtlessness in Jack’s head popped, and all the fear and outrage and confusion came crashing back.
He burst out, “What the hell was that? Why take us running right up to that monster if you knew what he was? If you know he was just going to tear you a new one?” His voice broke. “I almost died.”
He swallowed hard, feeling the gravity of the words hit him like blows to the stomach. “I almost died.”
He blinked to stop the world spinning, and looked angrily to Barry, who had done nothing but pant across from him like an old dog. His retort died in his throat when he got a better look at him.
The Scot-but-not was pale as marble, his eyes baggy and his cheeks touched with an ugly fractal pattern of purple capillaries. Blood had coagulated in clots of dark jelly upon the side of his beard, hanging in wobbly strings, and the tear in his jacket gaped like a mortal wound. The thick leather had saved him, but still Jack could see bare flesh torn underneath, oozing blood steadily.
“Oh.”
The ghost of a smile touched Barry’s lips. “Yeah,” he muttered.
Jack leapt onto his haunches and leaned forward. “Are you… okay?”
“Been better.”
Jack swallowed. “Did you know it would be… whatever it was?”
Barry shook his head fractionally. “Harper.” A long pause. “Bad.”
“Who is he? It?”
“Bad…”
Barry took a long breath suddenly, his eyes bulging.
Christ, he’s going to have a heart attack.
For a moment, Barry’s face remained frozen in a comic ‘O’ of surprise, then he slumped back against the dumpster and breathed easier.
Jack wheeled away and gave a strangled yelp as something black, tar like, dribbled from the wound under Barry’s jacket, pooling on the floor. The puddle twitched and undulated on the concrete, as though alive.
He resisted an absurd urge to touch it—somehow he knew that it would destroy him—and drew a sigh of relief; the other-worlder’s cheeks were reclaiming their flushed vigour. Before Jack’s eyes he rejuvenated from cadaver to something more like his old self.
After a full minute, during which Jack wished to all heaven that he was back in his apartment, splayed upside down on the sofa and buried in some Atwood paperback, Barry shook himself with a boisterous guffaw, hammering his chest with a bunched fist.
“Bloody hell, that was close,” he said, blowing out his cheeks and wiping away the clotted jelly from his beard.
Jack slid slowly back against the dumpster and hugged his knees.
Any moment now I’ll wake up on the ward. I’ll be in my pyjamas like the rest of the patients. It’ll be time for my walk in the garden. I bet I like walks in the garden.
He peeked one eye open, half hoping he’d see whitewashed walls and a smiling nurse.
Nope. Still in the alley.
He drew a ragged sigh. “I thought you were done for.”
“Ah, dying’s not my style. We don’t go in for that.” He sniffed. “Not all it’s cracked up to be. All that poetry, all those songs, just for that great load of nothing.”
Jack let it pass. “Answer my question, or I’m gone.”
“Yeah, yeah, all right. Keep your knickers on.” He hocked a few times, muttering, “Lucky I still need your sorry arse,” then straightened. “Let’s get this one out of the way: I’m sorry, kid.”
Roused by surprise, Jack looked round at the frank regret on Barry’s face.
“I didn’t know how bad it would be. The bastards weren’t supposed to be this far along. Harper’s no goon. He’s first-class evil minion, mate. Kind of above my level, to be quite honest.”
“What, you get league tables? Good versus evil, flyweight to super-heavy?”
A twitch on the Scot-but-not’s brow. “That’d be funny if it didn’t cut so close.”
“What is going on? Why do any of you care about us? Why couldn’t it be someone else?” Suddenly the world seemed so far away. It was only him and Barry, and the strange black blood dribbling between his fingers. “Why only now? I’m nothing special, never have been. Look me up in the dictionary; you’ll find me under ‘mediocre’.”
“It’s always been there, just quiet.”
Jack shook his head. “I don’t believe in that mystical crap.”
“Sure you do. You’re a nerd.”
“Just because I like
fantasy doesn’t mean I believe in the impossible.”
“Who said anything was impossible?”
“A man appearing in the middle of a book-store in a cloud of ice is impossible.”
“Apparently not.” Barry shuffled closer and cleared his throat. “Something inside you is awake now, because the Web needs you. You’re here for as much a reason as anybody. You just have a bigger role than most, so you get a few… perks.”
“What the hell is this Web?”
Barry gestured around them impatiently. “Y’know, the Web of All Where. Everything. All the worlds connected to one another, cosmic enormity, infinite planes coexisting, yada yada.”
Jack rubbed his tired eyes. “Your name’s not really Barry, is it?”
The Scot-but-not’s pain-dulled, inky eyes flickered with the gazes of a thousand men in one, all looking at him from across vast reaches of space and time.
“I’ve had more names than there are people in this city,” Barry muttered. Jack felt that he would never have received so straight an answer before. Something in the injury and pain had sloughed off Barry’s outer brashness.
“What are you? A man or a… a god?”
Barry’s lips twitched, not a sneer but a soft gentle smile. It was the first genuine sign of humour Jack had seen in him. “Neither. Somewhere in between.”
“If you have the power, why don’t you wave your magic wand and fix this?”
“I’m a lot closer to man, believe me.”
Jack fumed, pressing too hard with the gauze. Barry jerked with a grunt. “Don’t give me that bull. You could take my head off any second. You read my damn mind.”
“Just a bag of tricks.” Barry’s glassy eyes tracked over Jack, and a hint of regret filtered into his gaze. “It’s you who have all the real power. Creatures of destiny. I come from a place called Highcourt. I suppose you could call us self-appointed guardians. We gather creatures like you up like playing cards.”
“Why?”
“We need as many as we can get.”
“There are more of you?”
He nodded, then cocked his head. “Maybe not for long. You’d never know it, but there’s a war going on out there. We’ve kept the Web safe for a very long time, but Harper’s lot might have finally turned the tables on us. We can’t fail here. We have to keep everything spinning.”
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