by James Bennet
Already Anubis was weakening, his substance devoured by the Star. Black strata tainted the lightning, swirling like ink in water and drawn towards the stone’s ravenous core. His canine head, pointed ears and ruby eyes were all just a dusky blur, his outrage a receding din. Fighting was futile, a lost cause, and Ben groaned, his eyelids drooping, barely aware of the fact that his body echoed his sense of defeat. His horns shrank, his tail coiling in, his scales melting into bruised skin. His broken wing folded up to form the stump of his right arm, severed at the elbow and sluggishly bleeding, half-heartedly trying to heal. In a matter of seconds, seven tons of fabulous beast had dwindled to thirteen stone of seemingly human flesh. He curled up in the envoy’s suit, sick of the sight of the priest and the witch and their triumph, turning his head from the girl, the god and the flailing essence of the Queen.
Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw her. She climbed to her feet in the smoky shroud that covered the ground, a phantom rising from the grave. Strands of hair stuck to her brow, plastered by sweat and oil. Her gown hung in shreds from her scarred limbs, but Ben’s heart leapt at the vision. Rose! Rose is alive! Released from her bonds when the barrels collapsed, she must have been jolted out of her comatose state – what he now guessed was some kind of trance easily mistaken for death – and crawled, crawled unnoticed under the fog, reaching the boundary of the dome. He watched her pull herself up, her palms smearing filth on the unseen wall. Groggily she looked around, taking in the wrestling giant in the scintillating web, the floating chains and the reefs of darkness. She took in the figures on the tank, their backs turned to her: Khadra, the pigtailed witch and the jubilant priest.
Her eyes narrowed, slivers of frost. Ben called out, a husky moan escaping his throat. Rose didn’t hear him – or if she did, she ignored him – blanking him out in favour of the closest weapon to hand. Hands shaking, she reached down and lifted one of the magic bricks, the knee-high statue of Apep, the Lizard, the sculpture of the coiled snake with hood flared and fangs bared, its tongue forking between them. Grimacing and breathing hard, she balanced the crumbling icon on her shoulder. She swayed a little, a petal in a breeze. Then, managing to right herself, she staggered onward, shuffling up behind the priest. Her muscles strained as she braced her legs, hefting Apep over her head.
“I am not…a prize.”
Eyes glued to the struggling god, Kamenwati and the witch turned too late as Rose brought the statue crashing down on the priest’s skull.
Like a needle scratched across a record, his chanting was cut short. As Apep splintered into a hundred pieces, Kamenwati stumbled forward, dropping to his hands and knees, an involuntary act of obeisance. Blood streaked his ash-white hair, dripping down his face and staining the collar of his shirt. Despite the vigour of Kamenwati’s soul, Maurice Bardolfe’s body remained human. With no warning or chance to defend himself, the priest was as frail as any old man. Stunned, he crumpled, sprawling prostrate across the smeared circle. Nan Nemain leapt back, pigtails bouncing, her young face aged by spite. The witch raised her arms, poised to deliver an answering blow to their reeling assailant, some mumbo-jumbo to blast Rose from the tank.
She never got the chance. With the priest knocked senseless, Khadra slumped, her strings cut. The Crook fell limp at her side, the Star of Eebe rolling from her lap. Lightning lashed out, the single, concentrated bolt scattering into myriad jags. Nan had no choice but to dodge them, a lethal game of skipping rope, forcing her into retreat. Crackling energy swept the area, the swinging boom of a burning ship, and then the gem was quiet, its song silenced, its radiance dispersing like marsh light. The witch was already heading back, recovering the distance she’d lost to the discharge. Her shoulders hunched, her lips pouted. Rose stumbled away from her, heading for the railings edging the tank. Above them, Anubis withdrew, growling and nursing his wounds. His colossal frame rolled and sank like a whale at sea, vanishing into fans of smoke, the vaporous portal left open and empty.
Uncurling from his foetus of grief, Ben raised himself on his one good arm. Fatigue filled his muscles with lead and he half dragged his body forward, wincing with every foot gained. Cuts stung his shoulders and legs, a receding, needling tide. Exposed nerve endings itched and burned, new bone edging from his stump, raw tendons dangling at his side. Sweating, grunting, he hauled himself on, inching to Rose’s aid. The air before him no longer gleamed, the cellophane aura giving way to a noxious darkness. When the statue had shattered, it appeared that the circle had broken too, negating the spell upholding the shield. He clenched his teeth, pushing harder against the steel surface, forcing himself to his knees. This was his last and only chance.
A cold pressure slithered over his legs. He glanced, horrified, over his shoulder, glimpsing a squirming mass, the impression of mandibles and compound eyes, and then the questing tentacle clenched around his ankle, wrenching him flat on his face. Steel smacked his jaw, rattling his teeth. His skull chimed an alarm. With one slick, hungry twitch, his stolen ground was sliding under him, cruelly reclaimed by the mob at his back.
Lurkers!
The horde had gathered in the air, their bristling shapes merging with the night, a thick, packed vanguard floating several feet above the feed tank. Through the wall of carapace and barb, coiling tongues and flickering antennae, Ben could still see the knotted pipework, the outline of the distillation towers. Even here, on the threshold of the nether, the grey ones were not quite real, unable to assume corporeality. Still, that was little comfort. The great ghost-beasts, these mindless guardians, wandered forever at the limits of existence, sniffing out an excess of magic, a careless build-up of eldritch force. Kamenwati, drunk on magic and delirious with joy, must have reeked like an open cesspit, his invocations, his golden glyphs, a banquet of conjuration. The priest’s defences were shattered and dispelled, exposing the ritual at the refinery, and so the Lurkers had come, their blind, lumbering forms drawn like flies to shit. And Ben, innately magical and the closest to them, was about to become a tasty entrée.
His remaining hand bulged and hardened, a claw the size of a truck wheel whipping desperately out. Metal screamed as his talons pierced the tank, gouging three long, jagged holes. The tentacle went taut with his resistance, an elastic band stretching to its limits, suckers constricting around his foot. Ben cursed and flipped on to his side, his arm painfully twisted. The ground under him whispered and slowed, scraping against his suit, but now he could see his would-be devourer, the monstrosity looming over him. The blank array of mesmerised eyes. The bulging, cadaverous mantle. The snapping beak about to swallow him.
His legs swelled, the suit melting around his calves, merging with bestial brawn. Bones elongating, flesh fluid, his feet sprouted further talons. His back toes stabbed down like knives, striking sparks from steel. He jerked to a clumsy halt, crying out with the sick sensation of his organs trying to fly through his ribcage. Thus anchored, he lay panting as the phantom fucker vented a wail. The other Lurkers shuffled closer, drooling over this crumb in their midst. Nothing would stop them from ripping him apart, dragging bits of fabled meat off into the nether. What a noble end. The beaked creature shoved its mass against its comrades, seeking to deter them from its meal. Countless eyes returning to Ben, other tentacles slithered out. It was a pallid hydra come to finish him. One yank and he was on the move again, sliding slowly, helplessly towards the Lurker’s maw.
“No! Eat the priest. Eat the fucking priest!”
The thing didn’t seem to understand him. A tentacle coiled around his neck.
At first, Ben thought that loss of oxygen had caused the change in the atmosphere. Spots swarmed across his vision, reminding him of the killer bees. The night grew brighter, the thudding in his ears louder, taking on a resonant quality. A faint sizzling joined the din and there was something wrong with the sky, the seeping stars and frozen corona shifting as though seen through cracked glass. The prismatic vista filled with light, a trailing silver beam shooting out across the desert, a
final, glittering hallucination. The train at the end of the tunnel. Death.
No. Clicking and flailing, the Lurkers drew back as the beam sliced across the space between Ben and the ghosts. Mottled limbs, slick with ichor, writhed and recoiled like salted slugs. A brief hiss, and severed tentacles thumped on the tank, instantly vanishing in swirls of mist. Released from the noose, Ben gasped, his head thrown back, sucking in air. Neck smarting, he squinted to follow the length of the beam.
Impossibly, a rider was galloping along it, the hooves of his snow-white steed striking pearly sparks. Like some wingless latter-day Pegasus, the stallion swooped from the night-bound sky. The thudding in Ben’s ears resolved into a thunderous charge.
“Hai! Hai!”
The Lurkers erupted into chaos at the rider’s cry, the mob falling over itself in its haste to retreat. Here was magic that not even the ghosts would taste, a poisoned river winding through oblivion, left behind by a long-departed race. Here was magic that had severed worlds, a power that belonged neither here nor there, and the Lurkers would not come near it. Von Hart had described the Silver Leys in Berlin. They were unmapped roads left behind by the Fay, cutting through the gulfs of the nether and heading God knows where. The envoy had claimed that he could steer these byways within certain earthly limits. That was how he had rescued Ben from the underground car park, snatching him from the clutches of the CROWS.
“Oh dear, Liebling,” he said, by way of greeting. “Must I do everything?”
Here he was again, at this desperate hour. Blaise Von Hart, envoy extraordinary. His silk kimono, blood red and star-spangled, fluttered and shone as he slowed his horse, his milk-white legs clamped to its flanks, his delicate hands pulling at the reins. The stallion champed and trotted on the spot, its nostrils steaming. Von Hart smoothed his strict blonde parting, making sure that no hair was out of place. Then he leaned from the saddle, peering down at the mess sprawled below him. He pursed his lips, his cheekbones making a bust of his face. When he removed his sunglasses, his sharp violet eyes looked distinctly unimpressed.
Ben groaned. He tried to sit up, then fell back on the tank. Groaned again.
“Like a…bad penny…”
“Your gratitude is noted. You know, you’re running up quite a bill.”
“What are you doing here? I thought you said—”
“Get up. Get up, you oaf. You think I came to make chit-chat? You have work to do.”
Ben pushed himself to his knees. He regarded his stump and claw. He was between states once more, the main attraction at a freak show.
“Schnell! Schnell!”
The envoy galloped off, his horse leaping skyward. The stars his rodeo and the Ley his lasso, Von Hart hurried to round up the Lurkers, chasing them away from the feed tank. Ben watched him go, muttering his thanks. Then he lurched to his feet, assessing the scene.
His first concern was Rose. He found her in the fog, picking her out by her torn gown and messed-up hair. She leant weakly against the railings, searching for the steps that spiralled down to the car park.
Yes, get out. Get away…
Nan Nemain hopped up behind her, her eyes set on the escaping sacrifice. Again Ben cried out, and again Rose didn’t hear him. Lips quivering, the witch extended a stubby finger. Sensing her presence, Rose turned, shock twisting the wounds on her face. The railings rippled under her hands, the hexed metal sinuous and fluid, snaking up and stretching like jungle vines towards her. Inches from her flesh, the steel tendrils screeched and faltered, curling like thread away from flame. Rose leapt away from the railings, her clenched jaw and wide eyes telling Ben that she moved on adrenalin alone. Nan frowned at her outstretched hand, finger pulling the trigger on an empty spell. The witch tried again, an incantation flying from her throat. As soon as the words struck the air, the fog around Rose grew sooty and thick, a viscid wave surging over the ground. Muck spilled around Rose’s knees, bubbling and sucking at her legs, but before the morass could take hold, it was thinning and dispersing, drifting apart in slimy shreds. Nan swore, the curse unseemly on her young lips, and her expression dissolved into doubt as Rose – finding herself unharmed – shook off the dregs and stumbled towards her.
It took Ben a moment to understand. Rose was human, with no innate defence against magic. The CROWS had had no problem snatching her before. Why couldn’t they now? With relief rushing from his lungs, he realised that the sigils and whorls etched on her skin must be stronger than the witch had supposed, protecting her from supernatural influence. Kamenwati had wanted to safeguard his prize, his living (living! The thought shone like a neon sign) piece of bait. The priest’s precautions now worked against him. More confident with every step, Rose advanced on Nan Nemain, perhaps only seeing a naughty child, one she raised a hand to chastise, her tightly drawn lips far from motherly. The witch glanced over her shoulder, anxiously seeking assistance. Following her gaze, Ben saw the priest rising from the gloom, his face coloured by more than just blood. Kamenwati bared his teeth, but turned away. He had no use for his offering now. He scanned the portal above him. Finding the abyss empty, the god withdrawn, he tore off his jacket, took three strides past the stupefied Khadra and, with a harsh, guttural word, threw it over the dormant Star. Gingerly he picked up the stolen gem, safely swaddled by a silk lining and worsted wool, and all but tiptoed back to the little girl, eager to salvage the means of insurrection.
Not on my watch. Willing strength into his legs, Ben leapt into the air, bounding across the distance. He landed awkwardly, shock jolting into his thighs from the dent that spread under his feet. The priest crumpled under him, his protest slammed from his lungs and his precious bundle rolling away from him. Kamenwati scrabbled at Ben’s chest, neck and cheeks. His fingernails broke against scales, his fists beating on tough red flesh with the same impact as thrown cotton-wool balls. Kneeling over his quarry, Ben grabbed the priest’s collar, his claw crushing his fancy bow tie. He pulled Kamenwati’s face toward his own, his breath scorching enervated skin.
“Should’ve stayed dead. By the time I’m through with you, you’ll wish you had.”
Groaning, flecks of spittle on his lips and chin, the priest tried to wriggle away. Lethargy clung to his efforts, his charms disrupted, the sorcerous rush leaking away. Ben had seen the same thing in Club Zauber, the envoy shivering in cold turkey and panting at the end of the catwalk, his forehead dripping, his strength sapped. Kamenwati might as well have wrestled a python. Still he was defiant.
“You idiot! You imbecile! You dumb, blundering brute! Why choose them? Them! You’re a fucking monster! They’ll never accept you in a million years!”
Ben flinched. The priest spoke directly to his fears, just like Atiya had in the Alps, stoking them like hot coals, and the words burned no less than before.
That is your dream. You long for a normal life.
Under him, Kamenwati grew calm, watching him, sensing his doubt. Claw around his throat, Ben could not stop him from reaching up and clamping his hands to the sides of his head. The priest’s palms felt like winter, hissing against Ben’s heat. Ben tried to pull back, wrench himself free, but Kamenwati held him fast, his voice whispering into his mind.
Does your dream mean so little? Look!
A blink of thought, a page flipping over to the next, and Ben’s vision snapped inward, the priest, the portal and the tank gone. He saw himself walking through a museum – the Museum of Antiquities, he thought – a red-haired, ordinary man in boot-cut jeans and a T-shirt. Maybe he didn’t look too shabby, either. Josh Homme on his day off. He browsed the displays, the crumbling boat and the painted mummies, just an everyday tourist minding his business.
The scene changed, a wind stirring water, and Ben was sitting in an aisle seat of EgyptAir Flight MS792 – he knew this because it said so on his ticket – roaring over the deep blue Med en route to a holiday in Cairo. The appointments at the office could wait. His secretary would field all calls.
Another ripple and he was dancing
in a club in Berlin, some pouting girl pressing up against him in the crush and the sweat and the music. He took a swig from his bottle of beer. Smiled at her. Thought about asking her back to his hotel. He was just a man, after all. Just a man with needs.
The scenes flashed by in his mind’s eye, waves overlapping. He sprawled on the couch in number 9 Barrow Hill Road, half watching the evening news, the carousel of war and drought and crime and death that had nothing whatsoever to do with him, removed as they were from his comfortable house, with the nice wine cellar that had nothing whatsoever under it. No sliding walls. No secret stairs. No mounds of treasure. Because he was a man. Just a man.
And then he was in the park in New York, walking hand in hand with Rose McBriar, all their tomorrows laid out before them. Both of them a sped-up flower, bright and brief, fleeting as dust and yet so precious, so endless in the landscape of his heart.
He let the visions wash over him, lulling him with aching desires, the velveteen music of dreams.
Kamenwati whispered.
There will be no bounds in my empire. No gifts I cannot give.
Ben tasted salt, a sea of invitation, hot, unbidden tears. Blinking them away, his mind fumbling toward the present, he found himself staring down at the priest. Kamenwati, who could take his pain away, lay all his loneliness to rest, exorcise the ghost of centuries that haunted his soul…
“You call me a monster.” Ben let go of Kamenwati’s throat, watching him fall back on the tank, the priest’s hands slipping from his skull. “You call me a monster and maybe I am…”
He struggled to force out his words. The chaos of the week had left its mark, a lesson seeded in his mind, blooming into weary epiphany. The truth was he had lived with his feet in two worlds ever since Maud had found him in the woods, and on and on down the long, long years, half man and half beast, dousing his remorse with bottles of Jack and seeking solace in women’s arms. He had clung to the Lore like an anchor, the bedrock of his hope, but in the end, even that couldn’t save him.