Emmet knocked on the door, and popped his head around when he didn’t receive an answer. “Sorry to bother you, Al,” he ventured cautiously.
“That’s okay, boy,” Al said. “What’ve you got for me?”
“We’ve rounded up everyone on this floor. The electronics are all fucked, so they can’t get word out. Bernhard and Luigi have started to bring them to possession.”
“Great, you’ve all done pretty goddamn good.”
“Thanks, Al.”
“What about the rest of the electrics, the telephones and math-machine things?”
“I’m getting my systems plugged into the building network now, Al. Give me half an hour and I should have it locked down safe.”
“Good. Can we go to stage two?”
“Sure, Al.”
“Okay, boy, you get back to your wiring.”
Emmet backed out of the office. Al wished he knew more about electrics himself. This future world depended so much on their clever mini-machines. That had to be a flaw. And Al Capone knew all about exploiting such weaknesses.
He let his mind slip into that peculiar state of otherness, and felt around for the rest of the possessed under his command. They were positioned all around the base of City Hall, strolling casually down the sidewalk, in cars parked nearby, eating breakfast in arcade diners.
Come, he commanded.
And the big ground floor doors of City Hall opened wide.
* * *
It was quarter to nine when Mayor Avram Harwood III arrived in his office. He was in a good mood. Today was the first day in a week when he hadn’t been bombarded with early morning datavises from his staff concerning the Retro crisis. In fact there hadn’t been any communication from City Hall at all. Some kind of record.
He took the express elevator from his private car bay up to the top floor, and stepped out into a world which wasn’t quite normal. Nothing he could clarify, but definitely wrong. People scurried past as usual, barely pausing to acknowledge him. The elevator doors remained open behind him, the lights inside dying. When he tried to datavise its control processor there was no response. Attempting to log a routine call to maintenance he found none of the net processors were working.
Damn it, that was all he needed, a total electronics failure. At least it explained why he hadn’t received any messages.
He walked into his office to find a young, olive-skinned man lounging in his chair, a fat soft stick in his mouth with one end on fire. And his clothes . . . Retro!
Mayor Harwood spun around, ready to make a dash for the door. It was no good. Three of them had moved in to block the opening. They were all dressed in the same kind of antique double-breasted suits, brown hats with broad rims, and carrying primitive automatic rifles with circular magazines.
He tried to datavise a citizen’s distress call. But his neural nanonics crashed, neatly tabulated icons retreated from his mind’s eye like cowardly ghosts.
“Sit down, Mr Mayor,” Al Capone said munificently. “You and I have some business to discuss.”
“I think not.”
The Thompson’s butt slammed into the small of Avram Harwood’s back. He let out a cry at the pain, and the world went dizzyingly black for a second. One of his big armchairs hit the back of his legs, and he fell down into the cushions, clutching at his spine.
“You see?” Al asked. “You ain’t calling the shots no more. Best you cooperate.”
“The police will be here soon. And, mister, when they arrive they are going to fillet you and your gang. Don’t think I’ll help you negotiate, the commissioner knows my policy on hostage situations. No surrender.”
Al winked broadly. “I like you, Avvy. I do. I admire a man who stands up for himself. I knew you wouldn’t be no patsy. It takes smarts to get to the top in a city like this, and plenty of them. So why don’t you have a word with that commissioner of yours. Clear the air some.” He beckoned.
Avram Harwood twisted around as Police Commissioner Vosburgh walked into the office.
“Hi there, Mr Mayor,” Vosburgh said blithely.
“Rod! Oh, Christ, they got you too . . .” The words shrank as Vosburgh’s familiar face twisted. A feral-faced stranger sneered down at him; hair was visibly sprouting out of his cheeks. Not a beard, more like thick prickly fur.
“Yeah, they got me too.” The voice was distorted by teeth which were too long for a human mouth. He burst into a wild laugh.
“Who the hell are you Retro people?” an aghast Avram Harwood asked.
“The dead,” Al said. “We’ve come back.”
“Bullshit.”
“I ain’t arguing with you. Like I told you, I’m here to make a proposition. One of my guys—comes from just after my time—he said people took to calling it an offer you can’t refuse. I like that, it’s great. And that’s what I’m making here to you, Avvy, my boy. An offer you can’t refuse.”
“What offer?”
“It’s like this: Souls ain’t the only thing I’m resurrecting today. I’m gonna build up an Organization. Like I had me before, only with a shitload more clout. I want you to join it, join me. Just as you are. No catch; you have my word. You, your family, maybe a few close friends, they don’t get possessed. I know how to reward loyalty.”
“You’re crazy. You’re absolutely berserkoid. Join you? I’m going to see you destroyed, all of you deviant bastards, and then I’m going to stamp on the pieces.”
Al leaned forwards and rested his elbows on the desk, staring earnestly at the mayor. “Sorry, Avvy. That’s one thing you ain’t gonna do. No fucking way. See, people hear my name, and they think I’m just a bigshot hoodlum, a racketeer who made good. Wrong. I used to be a fucking king. King Capone the first. I got the politics tied up. So I know which strings to pull in City Hall and the precinct houses. I know how a city works. That’s why I’m here. I’m launching the biggest heist there’s ever been in all of history.”
“What?”
“I’m gonna steal your world, Avvy. Take the whole caboodle from under your nose. These guys you see here, the ones you called Retros, they didn’t know what the Christ they were doing before. Because just between you and me shutting off the sky like it’s some kind of window with thick drapes is a bit of a wacko idea, you know? So I’ve straightened them out. No more of that bullshit. Now we’re playing straight hardball.”
Avram Harwood lowered his head. “Oh, Christ.” They were insane. Utterly demented. He began to wonder if he would see his family again.
“Let me lay it out for you here, Avvy. You don’t take over a society from the bottom like the Retros were trying to do. You know, little bit at a time until you’re in the majority. Know why that’s a crappy way to get on top? Because the goddamn self-righteous majority is gonna find out and fight like fuck to stop you. And they get led by people like you, Avvy. You’re the generals, the dangerous ones, you organize the lawyers and the cops and the special federal agents to stop it happening. To protect the majority that elects you from anything which threatens you or them. So instead of an assways first revolution, you do what I’m doing. You start at the top and work down.” Al got up and walked over to the window wall. He gestured at the street far below with his cigar. “People are coming into City Hall, Avvy. The workers, the police captains, the attorneys, your staff, tax clerks. All of them; the ones who’d lead the fight against me if they knew what I was. Yeah. They’re coming in, but they ain’t going out again. Not until we’ve made our pitch to each and every one of them.” Al turned to see Avram Harwood staring at him in horror. “That’s the way it is, Avvy,” he said softly. “My people, they’re working their way up from the ground floor. They’re coming all the way up here. And all the people sitting in their offices who would normally fight against me—why, they’re going to be the ones who lead our crusade out into the world. Ain’t that right, guys?”
“You got it, Al,” Emmet Mordden said. He was hunched over a couple of processor blocks at one end of the desk, monitori
ng the operation. “The first twelve floors are all ours now. And we’re busy converting everyone on thirteen to eighteen. I make that approximately six and a half thousand people possessed so far this morning.”
“See?” Al waved his cigar expansively. “It’s already begun, Avvy. Ain’t nothing you can do about it. By lunch I’m gonna own the entire city administration. Just like the old days when Big Bill Thompson was in my pocket. And I got even bigger plans for tomorrow.”
“It won’t work,” Avram Harwood whispered. “It can’t work.”
“Course it will, Avvy. The thing is . . . returned souls. They ain’t altogether marbles intacto. Capisce? It’s not just an Organization I’m building. Shit. We can be honest in here, you and me. It’s a whole new government for New California. I need people who can help me run it. I need people who can run the factory machines. I need people who can keep the lights on and the water flowing, who’re gonna take the garbage away. Fuck, if all that goes down the pan, my citizens, they’re gonna come gunning for me, right? I mean, that’s what the Retros didn’t think about. What happens after? You still gotta keep things running smoothly.” Al sat on the arm of Avram Harwood’s comfy chair and put a friendly arm around his shoulder. “Which is where you come in, Mr Mayor. Plenty of people want to run it. Everyone in this room, they all want to be my lieutenants. But it’s the old problem. Sure they’re keen, but they ain’t got the talent. But you, you my boy, you have got the talent. So how about it? Same job as before. Better salary. Perks. Fancy girl or two on the side if you like. So what do you say? Huh, Avvy? Say yeah. Make me happy.”
“Never.”
“What? What was that, Avvy? I didn’t hear too good.”
“I said NEVER, you psychopathic freak.”
Very calmly, Al rose to his feet. “I ask. I go down on my fucking knees and ask you to help me. I ask you to be my friend. You, a wiseass I ain’t never even seen before. I open my goddamn heart to you. I’m bleeding across the floor for you here. And you say no? No. To me!” Three scars burned hot and bright on his cheek. Everyone else in the office had retreated into a daunted silence.
“Is that what you’re saying, Avvy? No?”
“You got it, shithead,” Avram Harwood shouted recklessly. Something wild was running free in his brain, a mad glee at confounding his adversary. “The answer is never. Never. Never.”
“Wrong.” Al flicked his cigar onto the thick carpet. “You got it way wrong, buddy. The answer is yes. It is always yes when you talk to me. It is yes fucking please Mr Capone Sir. And I’m going to fucking well hear you say it.” A fist thumped on his chest for emphasis. “Today is the day you say yes to me.”
Mayor Avram Harwood took one look at the stained baseball bat which had materialized in Al Capone’s hands, and knew it was going to be bad.
* * *
Duke-dawn failed. There was no sign of the primary sun’s comforting white light brushing the short night before it as the bright disk rose above the wolds. Instead, a miscreant coral phosphorescence glided out over the horizon, staining the vegetation a lustreless claret.
For a harrowingly confused moment Louise thought that Duchess was returning, racing around the underside of the planet after it had set scant minutes ago to spring up ahead of the lumbering Romany caravan. But after a minute’s scrutiny she realized the effect was due to a high haze of reddish mist. It really was Duke which had risen.
“What is it?” Genevieve inquired querulously. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure.” Louise scanned the horizon, leaning around the corner of the caravan to check behind them. “It looks like a layer of fog really high up, but why is it that colour? I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“Well I don’t like it,” Genevieve announced, and folded her arms across her chest. She glared ahead.
“Do you know what’s doing that?” Carmitha asked Titreano.
“Not entirely, my lady,” he said, appearing troubled. “And yet, I sense there is a rightness to it. Do you not feel comforted by its presence?”
“No I bloody don’t,” Carmitha snapped. “It’s not natural, and you know it.”
“Yes, lady.”
His subdued acknowledgement did nothing to alleviate her nerves. Terror, uncertainty, lack of sleep, not having eaten since yesterday, remorse, it was all starting to add up.
The caravan trundled on for another half a mile under the brightening red light. Carmitha steered them along a well-worn track below a forest. Here, the land’s gentle undulations were gradually increasing to form deeper vales and rolling hills. Dried up streambeds crisscrossed the slopes, emptying into the deeper gullies which ran along the floor of each valley. There was more woodland than out on the open wolds, more cover from, and for, prying eyes. All they had to go on was Titreano’s strange sixth sense.
Nobody spoke, too tired or too fearful. Louise realized the birds were missing from the air. The characterless forest loomed up like a shaggy cliff face mere yards away, bleak and repellent.
“Here we are,” Carmitha said as they rounded a curve in the track. It had taken longer than she thought. Eight hours at least. Not good for poor old Olivier.
Ahead of them the slope dipped down to expose a broad valley with heavily forested sides. The alluvial floor was a chessboard of neat fields, all marked out by long dry-stone walls and geneered hawthorn hedges. A dozen streams bubbling out from the head of the valley funnelled into a small river which meandered off into the distance. Red sunlight glinted off a narrow sliver of water running along the centre of its baked clay banks.
Bytham was situated about three miles down the valley; a cluster of stone cottages split in half by the river. Over the centuries the community had grown outwards from a single humpbacked stone bridge. At the far end, a narrow church spire rose above the thatched roofs.
“It looks all right,” Louise said cautiously. “I can’t see any fires.”
“Quiet enough,” Carmitha agreed. She hardly dared consult Titreano. “Are your kind out there?” she asked.
His eyes were closed, yet his head was thrust forwards, as though he were sniffing the air ahead. “Some of them,” he said, regretfully. “But not all of the village has been turned. Not yet. People are wakening to the fact that great evil stalks this land.” He glanced at Louise. “Where is your aerial machine berthed?”
She blushed. “I don’t know. I’ve never been here before.” She didn’t like to admit that apart from accompanying Mother on a twice-yearly train trip to Boston for a clothes-buying spree she’d hardly ever ventured outside Cricklade’s sprawling boundaries.
Carmitha pointed to a circular meadow half a mile outside the town, with two modest hangars on the perimeter. “That’s the aerodrome. And thank God it’s on this side of the village.”
“I suggest we make haste, lady,” Titreano said.
Still not quite trusting him, Carmitha nodded reluctantly. “One minute.” She stood up and hurried back into the caravan. Inside, it was a complete mess. All her possessions had been slung about by her madcap dash from Colsterworth, clothes, pots and pans, food, books. She sighed at the shards of broken blue and white china lying underfoot. Her mother always claimed the crockery had come with the family from Earth.
The heavy chest under her bed was one article which hadn’t moved. Carmitha knelt down and spun the combination lock.
Louise gave the Romany woman an alarmed look when she emerged from the caravan. She was carrying a single-barrelled shotgun and a belt of cartridges.
“Pump action,” Carmitha said. “It holds ten rounds. I’ve already loaded it for you. Safety’s on. You hold it, get used to the weight.”
“Me?” Louise gulped in surprise.
“Yes, you. Who knows what’s waiting for us down there. You must have used a shotgun before?”
“Well, yes. Of course. But only on birds, and tree rats, and things. I’m not a very good shot, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t worry. Just point it in the
general direction of any trouble, and shoot.” She gave Titreano a dry grin. “I’d give it to you, but it’s rather advanced compared to the kind of guns you had in your day. Better Louise carries it.”
“As you wish, my lady.”
Now that Duke was higher in the sky it was doing its best to burn away the red mist which hung over the land. Occasionally a beam of pure white sunlight would wash over the caravan, making all four of them blink from its glare. But for the most part, the veil remained unbroken.
The caravan reached the valley floor, and Carmitha urged the cob into a faster trot. Olivier did his best to oblige, but his reserves of strength were clearly ebbing.
As they drew nearer to the village they heard the church bell tolling. It was no glad peal calling the faithful to morning service, just a monotonous strike. A warning.
“The villagers know,” Titreano announced. “My kind are grouping together. They are stronger that way.”
“If you know what they’re doing, do they know about you?” Carmitha asked.
“Yes, lady, I would fear so.”
“Oh, just wonderful.” The road ahead was now angling away from the direction in which the aerodrome lay. Carmitha stood on the seat, and tried to work out where to turn off. The hedges and walls of the fields were spread out before her like a maze. “Bugger,” she muttered under her breath. Both of the aerodrome’s hangars were clearly visible about half a mile away, but you’d have to be a local to know how to get to them.
“Do they know we’re with you?” Carmitha asked.
“Probably not. Not over such a distance. But when we are closer to the village, they will know.”
Genevieve tugged anxiously at Titreano’s sleeve. “They won’t find us, will they? You won’t let them?”
“Of course not, little one. I gave my word I will not abandon you.”
The Night's Dawn Trilogy Page 137