“Have you seen the Chairman?”
“Who?”
“Never mind.” Moon set off toward the fighting, following the green trail of the poet.
I was only a few minutes ahead of him at the time, trying to manhandle the old man back underground. It was tough and unforgiving work as parts kept dropping from his body without warning. We reached the mouth of King William Street Station and I led him inside, down past the ticket booths, along the platform, onto the track and toward the headquarters of Love. I tried not to think about how badly things had gone wrong, how my schemes and dreams had been undone, but simply did my best to concentrate on saving the Chairman, on preserving the cornerstone of my vision. I didn’t know it at the time, but as I grappled with the old man, the Somnambulist, with a look of intense concentration on his face, was pulling the final swords from his body, almost free at last.
Like most schoolboys, the Prefects were easily bored. Half an hour was all it took to rout the combined forces of the Directorate, the Metropolitan Police Force and Love, Love, Love and Love. The streets around them were upholstered with corpses; the gutters ran red with the blood of the fallen. Hawker and Boon were in the midst of removing a man’s eye with the horseshoe attachment on their penknife when they caught sight of Mr. Skimpole tottering uncertainly toward them.
“Skimpers!’ shouted Boon. “What the devil are you doing here? Hawker, look. It’s Mr. S.”
Stepping over a dozen or so dead bodies with fastidious care, the albino finally reached their side. “What have you done?” he hissed.
“Pretty much what you asked, haven’t we, Boon?”
The other man nodded in fervent agreement. “The Mongoose is down, Maurice Trotman’s snuffed it and we’ve tidied this lot up as a bonus. Practically done your job for you, I’d say.”
“Please go,” Skimpole gasped. “You’ve done enough.”
“Well, I like that.”
“Dashed ungrateful’s what I call it.”
“What…” Skimpole stopped, his face screwed up in pain, until he managed at last a feeble: “What do I owe you?”
“Owe us, sir? Jolly decent of you to ask about a payment at a time like this.”
“You don’t owe us a bean, sir.”
“Not any more.”
“What?” Skimpole wheezed.
“Point of fact, we’ve taken what you owe already.”
“Shouldn’t worry, sir. It’s quite within your means.”
“Rather a bargain, I’d have said.”
Boon ruffled his hair affectionately. “I’d get home, though, sir, if I was you. He doesn’t look at all well, does he, Hawker?”
“Positively peaky.”
“If you’re going to die, sir I’d do it at home, Keeling over round here’s just going to look like you’re following the crowd. No, no, place to do it’s back in Wimbledon. Mortality’s unusual there. Out of the ordinary. People might take a spot of notice.”
A voice floated across to them. “Stop!”
Amused, the Prefects craned their heads to look. “Oh, I say, who’s that?”
“Isn't’ he the fat johnny from the club?”
“Could be.”
Dedlock stepped forward, a revolver clasped tightly in his hand. “Let him go.”
“You don’t understand,” the albino murmured.
Hawker moved toward Dedlock.
“Don’t move. I know what you are.”
Boon grinned. “I doubt that.”
“It’s all right,” Skimpole muttered. “They’re working for me.”
“For you?”
Stifling a yawn, Hawker sauntered across to the scarred man and knocked the gun from his hand. “Name’s Hawker. Don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.” And he gripped the older man’s hand in a parody of a handshake.
At once, Dedlock felt a terrific burning sensation which began at his fingertips and rushed over his entire body, a broiling, intense, pulsating heat. He fainted almost immediately.
Hawker shrugged and let him fall to the ground. “Just a little gift,” he explained. “No extra charge.”
“What’s happened to that funny green fellow?” asked Boon.
“Did a bunk down the tube, I think,” Hawker replied.
“Shall we have a look-see?”
“Why not?”
“I’m too tired to walk.”
“Agreed.”
They turned back to Skimpole.
“Ta-at, then, sir.”
“Tinkety-tonk.”
The Prefects linked hands, looking for an instant oddly innocent, like real children. Boon crumpled his brow, apparently deep in concentration.
I expect by now your disbelief is not so much suspended as dangling from the highest plateau of credulity. Even so, I regret that this next incident requires a further extension of that capacity.
The two men seemed to shimmer slightly, flickering like a reflection in rippling water. This effect lasted for no longer than a few seconds before they disappeared. Oh yes, disappeared. I can’t put it any more plainly than that. One moment they were there, the next they had been erased from existence. The sole sign that they had ever stood in that spot, their only residue, was a pungent smell of fireworks and the lingering aftertaste of sherbet dip.
They left maybe three dozen people alive. The living were outnumbered by the dead.
This, then, was the final horrible coincidence of the day, as all the strands knitted together to ensure the total failure of my plans. It is as well that I am a good and patient man and not prone to bitterness — somebody with a greater propensity toward self-pity than I might justifiably consider themselves a second Job.
I hurried the Chairman along the tunnel, back toward the sphere. He was degenerating fast, half his face gone, his body oozing and excreting spurts of that terrible green liquid. I tried to keep clear of the stuff but inevitably a little of it reached my skin, fizzing and sizzling like acid. Where it touched me, my body smelt like burning sausages.
We reached Love at last and I tried to get the old man inside. Behind us, I could hear someone running in our direction. Then a faint cry: “Tan!” It was Moon, of course, looking for revenge or some such. I bundled the Chairman through the green door and into the main hall.
What happened then was confused and difficult to follow. Even today I have great difficulty arranging events in their correct order.
The Chairman recognized the great hall as soon as he saw it, and I must say that his reaction was not one of grateful homecoming. Presumably he associated it with his long incarceration, with the tank and the amniotic fluid. In consequence, he became suddenly frantic to leave and return to the surface.
He roared something which I imagine was intended to be “No,” but, so thoroughly had his innards been eaten away by that viscous green slime which still oozed from his every pore, the words that emerged from his ravaged throat sounded more like animal roars than human speech.
Heroically, I tried to reason with him. “Mr. Chairman, please. I can repair you. Believe, me, it’s for the best.”
“Sur-face,” he growled, more coherent now. “SURFACE.”
“Stay. I beg of you.”
He seemed to calm down a little at this and I stepped closer, hoping to lead him by the hand and return him to the tank. Very probably, it was the worst move I could have made. With one swipe of what was left of his right hand (technically now more of a stump) he hit me hard across the face and sent me sprawling to the ground. I still carry the legacy of that blow today — a purple mark on my left cheek, around the size and shape of an apple, often mistaken for a birthmark.
I lay there, unable and unwilling to move, as the Chairman, dripping with poisonous green fluid, turned back toward the door and the outside world. How much indiscriminate havoc would he wreak before he was stopped? Given that his slightest touch was potentially lethal, I fancied the cost would be high indeed.
What I hadn’t bargained on, however, was another man, ju
st as deadly as he.
Later, I reasoned that I must have reached the main hall just as the Somnambulist had removed the final sword from his belly. As I was thrown to the floor, he stood up, dusted himself down and looked over toward us.
The Chairman gaped at the Somnambulist. He pointed and screamed something which sounded at the time like “My God,” though it has since been put to me that it was something else entirely.
Spewing green acid, the Chairman staggered forward and flung himself at the giant. The Somnambulist, weakened by his ordeal, was taken aback at first, but soon fought back, and furiously.
There was a crash and a stumble behind me. Edward Moon appeared by my side, intending no doubt to challenge me to a duel or bring me to justice. Mercifully, we were both distracted by a far more terrible sight.
Surprisingly, the green fluid seemed to affect the Somnambulist just as badly as it had me, and his face contorted in pain. Moon and I could do nothing but watch. It was like seeing two lions fight for dominance of the pack — no, more than that, grander — like two ancient reptiles, megalosaurs clashing on some primeval killing ground, twin gods, colossi grappling of the fate of worlds.
Another sight distracted us even from this awful vision, at first nothing more than a wispiness, then a faint disturbance in the air, then a swirling, shimmering rush of color. A foot or so from where the conjuror and I stood transfixed, the Prefects flickered into existence. In their hands they carried four absurd sticks of dynamite — the kind you see in newspaper cartoons, great red sticks of the stuff, their enormous fuses spitting sparks.
Oh, you’ll say they couldn’t possibly work. Explosives don’t actually look like that, those are just comical representations intended for the amusement of children.
Of course you’re entitled to your opinion, but I was there and I can assure you of their efficacy. Hawker or Boon (one of them — I get confused) flung the dynamite into the center of the great hall.
Leaving the red sticks spitting on the floor, the Prefects fled from the hall, peals of cackling laughter in their wake.
Moon stumbled forward, hoping, I imagine, to help his friend, but it was already too late. The first piece of dynamite exploded in the far corner of the room, bring half the roof down with an ear-splitting roar. I could hear the whole of the building’s structure creak and groan in protest and begin to fall in upon itself. Thick clouds of dust all but obscured or vision, but from what I was able to make out the giant and the dreamer ignored it all and fought on.
I have no shame in admitting that I picked myself up and ran, back through the tunnels and out into the street. I have many faults, but at least I know when to cut my losses.
The last thing I saw as I glanced back was the Chairman and the Somnambulist — monsters locked in conflict, an emerald miasma hanging about them, whilst Moon, not knowing what to do, gazed helplessly on.
He ran away in the end, just like me, though he stayed, I believe, to see the second explosion. He was later to claim that, before the great hall fell utterly in upon itself, the Chairman’s acid had begun to eat its way through the rock itself and that the adversaries had begun to sink into the earth, swallowed up as if by quicksand. He called out for the Somnambulist but the giant fought wordlessly on, and Moon had no choice but to flee. I wonder sometimes what he might have shouted before everything fell down, what final words he might have had, and I wonder, too, if the Somnambulist called back, if — at long last — he spoke.
All I know is that Moon escaped just before the last explosion. Behind him I saw the headquarters of Love, all that I had worked for, buried forever by rubble. I was glad not to be there to see that.
For the second time that day I emerged panting back onto the street. The fighting was over; police, medics and other professional busybodies were arguing over what to do with all the mess and corpses. Even the press had started to sniff about.
On seeing all of this commotion, I felt a sudden surge of hope. I thought I might still escape and slip away in the midst of the confusion. No such luck. I felt a revolver pressed hard against the back of my head.
“The Somnambulist is dead.”
“Edward?” I asked feebly.
He spun me around, placed the gun at my forehead. “The Somnambulist is dead,” he repeated in a flat, toneless voice.
I wondered how I could possibly apologize without sounding insincere. “Sorry,” I said eventually, and shrugged. “Thought he was indestructible.”
I doubt you’d have done any better under the circumstances.
Moon placed the gun harder against my head and seemed on the cusp of pulling the trigger when he was interrupted by a familiar voice.
“You must be Edward Moon.”
“What do you want?” Moon hissed.
“My name is Thomas Cribb.” I realized that the ugly man was standing behind me, facing the detective. “I would offer to shake hands but I can see you’re a little tied up.”
“What?”
“You’re about to make a considerable mistake.”
“I thought you’d joined Love.”
“Me? Well, I suppose I may do. But that will happen tomorrow.”
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t shoot him.”
“Only this.” Cribb smiled. “You don’t. I’ve seen the future and the Reverend Doctor here is languishing in a prison cell.”
Out of the corner of my eyes I could see the approach of several policemen and the inspector. They hung back, waiting to see how the situation would play itself out. I suppose I’ve no right to be angry but I rather think it was their duty to save me, not stand by and watch my murder.
“Does he die?” Moon asked, sounding — I have to say — unnecessarily bloodthirsty. “Is he executed?”
Cribb pulled a face. “They won’t hang him.”
“No justice, then?”
“I can promise you this: He gets punishment enough. He suffers. Please. Put down the gun.”
For a moment, Moon looked as though he still might go through with it.
“Please,” the ugly man said again. Moon seemed to relent and started to return the gun to his pocket. But at the last second he brought the gun back up toward my face.
“No!” shouted Cribb.
Moon, distracted by the sound, pulled the trigger too soon. The bullet went wild, missed me (though I fancy I felt it brush my cheek) and hit the ugly man instead. The damage can’t have been all that serious but he fell to the ground nonetheless, whimpering like a soccer player hoping for sympathy, clutching at his left hand and muttering to himself.
The police finally appeared (not before time) and I was wrenched roughly to my feet. Handcuffs were slapped on me with little or no consideration as to how they might chafe. I was led away and Moon said nothing.
As I walked, however, I heard him call out to someone. Cribb? Perhaps, but I have always felt a strange certainty that he was addressing someone else entirely. “The Somnambulist is dead,” he cried, then more quietly: “The Somnambulist is dead.”
Chapter 20
It happens every morning underground. Chances are you’ve noticed it yourself.
In the rush hour, as all those beleaguered commuters fight their way off the trains at Monument Station, pinstriped and bowler-hatted to a man, ready to submit themselves to the merciless grind of another day’s work, they bear witness to an extraordinary phenomenon.
Shit. The choking stench of it becomes on some mornings almost overpowering. I am reliably informed that there is many a nose wrinkled in distaste, many a copy of the Times folded into an impromptu fan, many a handkerchief pressed discreetly against the face. But so used are these passengers to the city’s creaking, dilapidated railways that they make no comment at this indignity but, teeth clenched and pride swallowed, travel stoically onwards. I’ve no idea why such an effect should occur, though I imagine it has at least something to do with the tunnels’ unfortunate proximity to the sewer system.
I think this is signifi
cant. It seems to me that London reveals something of its real self at such moments, shows the skull beneath its skin, its true cloacal nature. It is meant as a warning, I think, and as a rebuke.
How different things might have been had we succeeded! Poppies and daisies would grow now where the banks and counting-houses stand. London in its corrupt state would have passed away and in its place the state of Pantisocracy would flourish and bloom. A dream, you say? A childish fantasy? Perhaps.
Two and a half hours after Mr. Hawker’s searing handshake had rendered him unconscious, Mr. Dedlock opened his eyes and hoisted himself groggily to his feet. Happily, he had awoken from his stupor without any obvious ill effects, save for a faint, throbbing ache in his head, no worse than he had endured on countess occasions after a night’s overindulgence.
Around him, the fires had been extinguished, the dead were being cleared away and the walking bandaged up — everything polished and cleaned and made tidy. Within a day the battlefield would be restored to its usual condition and the citizens would try to pretend that nothing had really happened there at all. It was as though after Hastings the survivors had simply swept up the debris, stowed away the casualties and hoped everything would be back to normal again tomorrow. Such small-minded behavior — London had come within a hairs-breadth of being saved, and her people had responded like children afraid of the dark, by squeezing shut their eyes and begging it to go away. The Church of the Summer Kingdom had offered them salvation but they were content to live on just as they always had, in iniquity, in ignorance and sin.
Not, of course, that Dedlock thought about any of this when he looked approvingly around him. No, he was merely relieved that the incident was over and that he had survived unscathed. Just a little self-consciously, he cleared his throat, walked across to the nearest group of policemen and began barking orders.
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