by Tom Pollock
‘Tsarina?’ Victor said uncertainly.
‘It’s okay,’ she whispered. She’d felt something in the rubble, a warmth and a thrum, like a pulse. It was alive. Now as she wormed her way forward, she could feel the kiss of the living concrete on her arms and neck and her belly, charging her skin with the city again. She laughed, shockingly loud in the dark: the pulse coming through the ground was faint, but to her it was like fresh air after drowning. She laid her head on the ground. She heard something, and froze.
Was that crying?
It was very faint, the vibrations carried through the stone from deeper underground. She strained to listen.
There it was again: quiet crying, as though with pain, the kind of pain that you had endured for a long time but you still couldn’t get used to. There was another sound, too, the creaking of rock under terrible strain. The sounds were synchronised, and each groan of the rock drew a gasp and a whimper from the voice, as though someone was drawing painful breath against stone.
Women in the Walls. Masonry Men.
Unbidden, the image of the mangled human shapes at the Woolwich Demolition Fields sprang into her mind and her stomach lurched. She suddenly knew where the life she was sensing was coming from.
She scrabbled at the unseen ground with her fingers, looking for a seam, slipping her nails into cracks until finally she found what she was looking for. She heaved, and a concrete slab jarred the tunnel as she cast it aside.
‘Tsarina! Stop!’ Victor shouted.
Beth ignored him. There was someone alive down there. She dug into the hole she’d made, until the smell of stale piss and sweat and raw spirits enveloped her and thick, muscular arms seized her own.
‘Tsarina, stop,’ Victor whispered in her ear.
She strained, but he wouldn’t let go. ‘There’s someone alive down there!’ She braced herself, preparing to wrench herself free, even if it meant breaking his arms.
‘Niet, no someone,’ Victor hissed, ‘some many.’
Beth fell still, panting for breath. She felt a gentle pressure on the side of her head and she let Victor push her to the wall.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I begin to hear them a way back.’
For a second Beth could hear nothing but the thud of her own pulse, then voices began to filter through the rock: women’s voices, and men’s; age-clotted voices, and shrill, unbroken ones. They echoed backwards and forwards, sometimes answering each other with a few garbled words in bereft tones. But most of them just cried: weak, but inconsolable.
‘Wherever you dig,’ Victor said, ‘you will only bury others deeper.’
After a moment, Beth understood what he was telling her She’d only ever seen the dead before now; what she was listening to were the wounded, crushed under the weight of the Crane King’s court.
‘Come, Tsarina. Let’s find your friend. There is nothing else to do.’
But as Beth made to take her ear from the wall, a change infected the voices. The crying stopped, and in its place came a whisper: one word. It spread through the voices with the virulence of rumour: Mistress
Mistress Mistress Mistress Mistress Mistress—
MistressMistressMistressMistressMistressMistressMistressMistress
And then as one, the voices fell silent.
CHAPTER 48
‘Victor,’ Beth groaned as a new sound filled the tunnel: a hissing scratch like steel coils sliding over stone. ‘She’s coming.’
Beth imagined the Wire Mistress’ barbs hooking into the walls of the tunnel, dragging their human bundle along in their wake. The sound echoed around the stone walls; Beth couldn’t tell what direction it was coming from.
She gripped the spear in the dark and imagined Pen’s mutilated face.
As quick as a snake, something lashed through the air by her cheek.
Victor cried out, a cut-off gasp, and Beth whirled, the spear’s iron point catching on the roof of the tunnel. Metal scraped over stone and a bright blue spark flared.
She saw Victor, in that instant’s light, four feet behind her. A thin skein of wire was wrapped tightly around his neck. The barbs were biting into his flesh. His eyes were popping out of his head and his tongue was bleeding where he’d bitten down on it.
Then darkness fell again and Beth was knocked against the wall as Victor’s bulk was hauled past her and up the tunnel. ‘Victor!’ she yelled. She pushed herself back onto her knees, still dazed, the spear gripped tightly in her right hand. The Mistress’ hiss carried back down the tunnel and Beth followed, crawling on hands and knuckles and knees until the tunnel widened enough for her to lurch to her feet. Cramped muscles protesting, she broke into a shambling run.
She could see the next corner now. The clash and grind of Reach’s machines was growing louder. She gripped her spear tighter as she swung around the bend, and stopped cold.
Ahead, at the far end of the tunnel she saw a chamber. Four walls had collapsed inwards and were taking each other’s weight, forming a kind of pyramid. Pen stood in the centre of the space, in a cat’s-cradle of light shafts. Dust motes spun around her and her wire-skin gleamed.
‘Move,’ Beth muttered to herself, willing her muscles on. ‘Move.’ She drove herself forwards.
Pen gazed out at her from her between the wires, her eyes wide with fear. Her lips were stitched shut with barbs.
When she was just inches from the opening to the tunnel, Beth saw why Pen looked so scared. A strand of wire, so fine as to be almost invisible, was stretched across the doorway at neck-height, ready to bite hard into Beth’s throat. Arms flailing wildly, she tried desperately to check her charge, but she skidded on loose gravel and she couldn’t stop herself. She swallowed as the barbs tickled her neck.
Pale fingers lashed out and yanked the wire away just as Beth fell into the chamber. She rolled and came up fast, spear ready, eyes twitching for a target but unwilling to throw.
Victor staggered forward and then pulled back. The tendons in his neck stood out. One hand gripped the wire he’d torn from the door, the other was at his throat, where the coils of the mistress bit deep. Beads of blood glimmered on his skin. He was white as death, but he smiled tightly.
‘Not worry, Tsarina.’ His breath escaped in snatched wheezes. He leaned back and hauled on the wire. The muscles in his neck bulged. Veins emerged through his face like cracks in glass. ‘In Moscow was seven times Tug-of-War Champ—’
The wire around his throat stretched taut. There was an organic-sounding crack.
The Wire Mistress flexed her coils and slammed him into the wall with hideous force. He crumpled to the ground, his head a crush of bone, hair and bloody wool.
Beth snarled in grief and fury. She looked at Pen and saw only the monster. She gripped the spear tighter, and charged.
The price of rage was grace, and the mistress easily sidestepped Beth’s clumsy lunge. Needle-pointed wires lashed out and hot pain ran through Beth’s cheek.
She turned fast, raising her spear high, but Pen, in the mistress’ grip, moved with demonic speed. A punch slammed into Beth’s kidney. Pen’s fist twisted as the barbs bit and ripped away the cloth and the flesh underneath.
Beth’s scream echoed up the chamber and she reflexively swung the spear. It crunched meatily into Pen’s ribs.
Unable to cry out, Pen fell in abject silence to one knee.
Blood oozed from Beth’s side. Sickened with pain, she raised the spear over her head, ready to plunge it down into her best friend’s chest. Wires uncoiled swiftly from Pen’s shoulders, lashing and binding Beth’s arms so she couldn’t bring the spear down. Panic bubbled through her, and along with it, a tiny bit of relief.
Pen climbed to her feet, eyeing Beth warily. Skeins waved in the air like floating seaweed, twisting towards her. Time slowed down. The wire tendrils stroked curiously, almost gently, over Beth’s face, as though learning it. They brushed the spearpoint, and then coiled back on themselves.
The spear, Beth thought. The wire’s scared of th
e spear.
Drawing on all the inhuman strength in her muscles, Beth let the spear go and jumped sideways, dragging the slack out of the wire that bound her. She threw herself at the wall.
Pen’s head snapped to track her, horribly fast.
Beth’s shoulder slammed painfully into the stone, but she’d drawn the wire taut, and a fraction of second later the falling spear slashed through it.
The mistress released Pen’s lips and she screamed.
The bindings fell away from Beth’s shoulders and she snatched up the spear, but even as Pen screamed, the mistress was propelling her fist into Beth’s face.
Beth reeled. Her teeth were cracked, her lips hot and puffy.
The Wire Mistress pressed the assault, raining down punches, forcing incredible power through Pen’s wounded body. Beth gave ground, warding her off with her spear where she could, taking other blows to her forehead, eyes and face. A barb ripped a chunk of one ear away and Beth felt it fall down inside her collar.
Suddenly her right leg went from under her and as she fell onto her back the spear clattered away. Victor’s glassy eyes stared at her. She’d caught her heel in his groin.
The Wire Mistress seethed above her, Pen trapped at its heart. Beth groped for the spear, but it was three or four inches from her hand: much, much too far. She felt the last of her courage bleed out of her. Pen drew a foot back, ready to stamp down on her face.
Beth shut her eyes. ‘This isn’t you, Pen,’ she whispered to herself.
A heartbeat passed, then another, then another. Beth opened her eyes. She snatched up the spear and scrambled to her feet. Pen and the Wire Mistress were simply standing, a couple of feet away. Pen’s left foot was still in the air, not moving.
For a long instant Beth stood there, staring, until she saw why she was still alive.
Pen was gripping the wall. Her fingers had found crevices in the stone and every joint was white with effort. She’d dug her right foot into a hollow in the ground. Through her torn shirt, Beth could see her muscles straining and her veins standing out blue, in stark contrast to the wires which roiled over her. The barbs goaded her, jerking her back and forth horribly, opening ragged new wounds. Blood dripped off Pen like sweat, but she would not move. Her eyes were shut, her lips twitching in that way they did when she was praying. She would not obey. She was refusing to comply.
Suddenly Pen’s eyes snapped open wide. She stared at the tip of the railing-spear, and then looked down, once, to her own chest.
With a jolt of horror, Beth understood. Pen was letting Beth kill her.
Beth drew back the spear.
Pen closed her eyes, her chest heaving.
Beth tensed her shoulder, whispering in her mind, Pen, I’m sor—
An idea struck her then, with the force of a blow, and she almost fumbled the weapon in her haste. Instead of stabbing forward, she slid the spear flat across Pen’s belly, between the wire and her sweat-sheened skin, and jerked it back.
The wire screamed, and Pen screamed. A tendril fell away in two.
Again and again, faster and faster, Beth wielded the spear, dashing away the tears that blurred her eyes so she could aim, always cutting the wire, never the skin.
The Wire Mistress hissed and thrashed, but still it couldn’t leave its host. Grim-faced with pain, Pen pinned it to the wall even as it tore at her. The last cord stretched out from Pen’s belly button, an umbilical wire.
Beth cut it, and Pen collapsed. For a long time they slumped together on the floor of the chamber, leaning on each other, just breathing. Inch lengths of barbed wire twitched like blind worms around them in the dust.
Eventually Beth spoke. ‘Pen, Pen— I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for you to— I didn’t want you to follow…’ But she tailed, off because that was a lie. She had meant for Pen to follow her: Meet me under broken lights, that’s what she’d written.
Pen laughed, or gurgled, which seemed about as close as she could get. ‘That’s what I do, B,’ she whispered bitterly. ‘I follow you.’
Beth tried to hug Pen, but she recoiled as Beth’s arms closed around her, hissing with pain. Beth sat up and properly took in the extent of her best friend’s cuts. Her own wounds were already knitting, sealed up by that strange mix of oil and cement the Chemical Synod had put in her blood, but Pen—
Pen wasn’t so lucky. Her slim frame and narrow face were covered in long gashes, not deep, but all of them savage and red. Her left nostril, earlobe and bottom lip weren’t there anymore; the skin where they ought to have been ended short in jagged tears.
‘We have to get you out of here,’ Beth began to mumble. ‘We have to get you to a hospital. Can you stand? I can carry you – shit, look at you girl, you’re a mess.’
‘And I always took such good care of my appearance.’ Pen coughed up a laugh. ‘I tell you what, B, we’ll roll you in barbed wire and hit you with a railing and then see if you win any beauty pageants.’ She tried to smile with her one remaining lip. Then she swallowed and the half-smile fell away. ‘Listen to me, B: you have to stop Reach.’
Her eyes were wide, but whether with wonder or horror, Beth couldn’t tell. ‘The Wire Mistress – its barbs were in my head; I knew its thoughts. We worshipped Reach, like a God.’
We worshipped. We, not it. Her voice was thick with violation. ‘Reach is tearing the city up, building himself in its skin,’ she croaked. ‘He’s killing it. He doesn’t know it, but he’s killing everything.’
‘I know,’ said Beth. ‘I don’t care – it doesn’t matter. None of it does. I have to get you better.’
Again, Pen peeled that one-lipped smile off her teeth. ‘That’s sweet, but it’s bullshit.’
Beth hissed in exasperation. ‘Fine, be like that. I’ll sodding carry you.’ As tenderly as she could she put her arms under Pen’s torn skin and made to lift her.
‘Ow! Ow! B!’ she whispered, ‘if I was going to bleed to death I would have done it days ago. Pakistani, remember? I’m related to about four hundred doctors. I know what I’m talking about. Will you just go?’
Beth shook her head stubbornly. She braced herself to lift her friend again.
‘Do you even know the way out of here?’ Pen demanded. ‘You’re in a maze, you know.’
Beth froze as Pen pointed weakly to one of the exits from the chamber. ‘You’re lucky. You’re close. Reach is eighty yards that way. Straight line. You can’t miss it.’
‘And the way out?’ Beth asked. But she knew what was coming.
Bloody teeth showed through the gaps in Pen’s lips when she closed them. She shook her head. It was the only way she could make Beth leave her here. Not telling. ‘Sorry.’
Beth stood slowly and gathered up her spear. Pain flared out through her skin, but no bones were broken. She could still run. She could still fight. Frustration bubbled up in her and she punched the wall, hard. Her fist smashed half an inch into the wall, making dust trickle down from above.
Pen looked alarmed. ‘I get that you’re pissed off, B; you don’t have to bring the roof down on me.’
As she fell silent Beth became aware again of the noise that had always been there: the savage roar of Reach’s machines, only eighty yards away.
‘That picture you did of me,’ Pen said at last, like she had to offer something, ‘on the wall by my house. It was good. I liked it.’
Beth smiled awkwardly. ‘I was hoping you might come up with a poem for it.’
Pen’s lip twisted. ‘All right.
‘There once was a girl from Hackney,
who told me she always would back me.
She went off the rails, with me on her tail,
and this thing made of barbed wire attacked me.’
She looked at Beth. ‘It’s only a limerick, but I’m a bit rusty, you understand.’
Beth’s ears burnt in shame. She didn’t say anything.
‘Sorry,’ Pen said after a moment, ‘I’m just—’
‘—I know.’ Beth squared her sho
ulders and turned towards the exit Pen had pointed to. ‘Thanks, Pen.’
Pen’s breathing was shallow, like someone controlling panic. ‘You know I love you, B, but this isn’t for you,’ she whispered. ‘This is for me. I want to want this.’
Beth didn’t understand what she meant. She crouched by Victor’s body and closed his eyes. She felt a dangerous pinprick of sorrow for the old Russian, but she smothered it before it could grow.
Later, she promised herself. Later. She raised the spear to Pen and made for the passage.
The light was stronger there, and the pneumatic drills made the ground shake: the machines belonged to Reach, master of the Wire Mistress. The monsters had stolen her best friend, killed Victor and destroyed so much of her city. She felt fury in her chest, as hot and black and viscous as boiling tar. Her feet were about to break into a run when Pen’s voice rang up the tunnel.
‘B!’ She sounded fragile. ‘I’m scared.’
Beth stopped. ‘Pen?’ she called.
A long moment passed. When Pen answered, she sounded firmer, more in control. ‘No, I’m okay. Sorry, go on. I’m fine. It’s just taking me a while to get a grip on myself again— Go!’
Beth gritted her teeth, turned around, and for the first time in their friendship, she did what she was told.
Pen lay back on the shale, relishing the simple act of shutting her eyes. She took deep, painful breaths, ignoring her cracked ribs, expanding her diaphragm, because she could.
She regretted calling out, but even with the Mistress gone, her desires and fears kept flipping and reversing. She wondered if she’d ever again be able to want something for long enough to pursue it. She shifted, and winced. Every square inch of the fabric she wore was slippery with blood.
If I was going to bleed to death I would have done it days ago, she’d said. I know what I’m talking about.
It was the first proper lie she’d ever told Beth. Not bad for a friendship lasting three years, she told herself. Panic was swarming over her like tiny spiders, but there was a rush too. A sense of pure freedom.
Her eyes snapped open as a new sound sneaked into her ears under the all-too-familiar clatter of Reach’s machines: hurrying footsteps.