by Tim Clare
‘No!’ Delphine felt the familiar pull of the stammer, fattening her tongue. ‘Wuh . . . wuh . . . ’ She took a breath. ‘We were duh . . . ’ Another breath. ‘We were defending ourselves.’
‘As you should have.’ Anwen pressed both hands to her breastbone. ‘As was I. Don’t you see, child? We’re the same, you and I. We hold the same things dear. The world will call you wicked for what you’ve done, but I understand. Armchair moralists never have to face the consequences of their actions, of their inaction. The country we love will perish without our help.’
Anwen shook her head. ‘Fallen cherub, to be weak is miserable.’
She moved quickly towards Delphine, wrenching down the collar of her heavy overcoat. ‘Enough waiting. Join me.’
‘Eh-Eh-Endlessness . . . ’
Anwen rounded on Cox. ‘What did I just tell you?’
‘Eh-Endlessness . . . please . . . ’
Cox jerked his head back, grimacing. The Mauser twitched in his grip.
Footsteps approached through the tunnel.
‘More stragglers,’ said Anwen, cupping the swollen sac of grubs on her neck. Delphine turned to look, her heart thundering. She had to act now. This was her last chance.
Out of the darkness stepped a lean man with silvery hair, stripped to the waist.
‘Who are you?’ said Anwen.
Daddy swayed, the air around him buckling.
‘Oh my God,’ said Anwen. Her hand dropped to her side. ‘He’s one of us.’
CHAPTER 44
WHILE MEN SLEEP
Daddy took a step forward. His bare foot hit a puddle and the water frothed, evaporating. Steam rose from the surrounding rock, droplets forming on his chest hair. His eyes were pink. ‘He’s been stung,’ said Anwen.
‘He’s a peer. But I . . . I don’t . . . ’
‘A pr-pretender!’ said Cox. ‘I’ll . . . k-kill you!’ He dropped the pistol and held his arm straight, palm up. ‘D-d-damnation!’ He opened his mouth in a snarl then apparently found himself unable to close it. He glanced from his shaking arm to Anwen and began emitting a low whine.
‘What’s wrong?’ said Anwen.
Daddy took another lurching step. Water hissed and vanished.
‘Daddy!’ said Delphine.
He blinked, swung his head blindly.
Anwen was staring at Mr Cox. ‘Rutherford? Speak, damn you. Oh God, you really did poison her drink, didn’t you?’
Cox arched his back and cawed. His teeth clacked shut. Sweat beaded along his jawline.
‘He didn’t,’ said Delphine. ‘I did.’
She let the bottle of rat poison she had found in Mr Garforth’s back room roll from her sleeve, into her palm. It was empty.
She flung it at Anwen’s face. Anwen threw her arms up. Delphine ran at Cox.
He saw her coming and pivoted with his whole torso, trying to slap her with his rigid arm. She ducked, driving her shoulder into his ribs. She hit him hard. Cox twisted, tripping over his feet. As he fell, he clipped his head on a harka statue.
Delphine leapt on him. He writhed and kicked under her, hands stiffening into claws. She thrust her fingers into his waistcoat’s fob pocket, hunting for the matchbook. The pocket was empty. She reached for the other one. Cox gargled. He was weeping. The silk was hot and smooth beneath her fingertips. Her nails found the ridge of the matchbook then strong hands gripped her shoulders and she was surging upwards.
‘Get off him!’ Anwen rattled Delphine back and forth. Delphine kicked. She felt her foot connect with Anwen’s stomach. Below, Cox grunted. Anwen turned and hurled Delphine. Cold air rushed over Delphine’s ears then a flash of white –
A great carpet of heat prickled her flesh and pressed like a weight. She came round on her back. A droplet of water fell from the ceiling and struck her – tap – in the centre of the forehead.
It was warm.
‘Rutherford?’ The voice made her sit up. In guttering lamplight, Anwen Stokeham stood over the body of Mr Cox. He lay at the base of the stern harka statue, legs splayed clownishly, one arm twisted over his face. ‘Rutherford?’ Anwen put out a hand, but it froze, as if encountering glass. She clutched her temple. ‘Rutherford? I can’t hear you! Rutherford!’ She was shouting. Her blue eyes were fixed on a patch of floor. ‘Rutherford. Rutherford. Rutherford.’
Another almighty gasp of heat broke against Delphine. Shielding her eyes, she turned towards it.
Daddy’s pale body flickered in the heatwarp.
With each crackling step, water vaporised. Steam condensed on the ceiling. Droplets fell and exploded pfff ahhhhh pfff on his head and shoulders. Rills of white vapour coiled and shifted around the contours of his body. Flame broke out near his collarbone; flesh blistered, cauterising; the flame extinguished. He swung his head, grinding his teeth.
‘Daddy!’
She tried to get up. A stabbing pain lanced behind her right kneecap. Her skull throbbed.
Anwen was down on one knee, clutching at Mr Cox’s lapels. Water dripped onto her yellow-white hair.
‘Rutherford, please. Rutherford. Don’t leave me.’
She pressed her face into the breast of his jacket. His limp body shook as she held him.
‘Daddy? It’s Delphine.’
Daddy had the blind stare of a sleepwalker. The jacket of the dead skinwing at his feet bloomed into flame. He inhaled and the air round him billowed.
‘We were going to walk the universe,’ said Anwen. She lifted her head; her face was streaked with tears.
Her eyes found Delphine. ‘You.’
‘Daddy!’ She took a step towards him but the heat forced her back, stinging exposed skin. ‘Daddy, you have to go back!’
Anwen picked up the pistol. She aimed it at Delphine’s head.
Her index finger slid from the trigger guard. She rotated the broomhandle grip till the muzzle pointed back at her. She held the gun out.
‘Kill me.’
Delphine did not move. Anwen marched at her.
‘Kill me!’
Delphine backed away.
‘Arthur?’ Daddy spun to face her, ruddy-eyed, groping at braids of vapour. Fires were breaking out all over his body. ‘Arthur, where are you?’
‘Here! I’m here!’
Delphine’s shoulder blades bumped into the moist rock of the chamber wall.
‘Do it!’ Anwen thrust the pistol at her. ‘Do it, you bloody coward!’ She grabbed Delphine’s wrist and tried to force the Mauser into her hand. The ivory clasp had fallen from Anwen’s hair; wild strands raked her face. Sweat streamed down her. Her breath reeked of petrol. ‘Finish what you started!’
‘Daddy! Help me!’
‘Arthur!’ Daddy let out a frothing howl. Black smoke streamed from his throat. He slapped at flames rising from a wound in his gut. The gash sizzled shut, flesh bubbling under his fingers. His forearm kindled; flames chewed through regenerating skin. He gargled, staggered. His steel-grey hair blackened, regrew. He was burning, healing, burning.
One of Daddy’s eyes began smoking. He arched his back, gasping. Delphine heard the eyeball burst with a soft potch.
‘Daddy!’ Delphine tried to run for him, but Anwen shoved her back against the wall.
‘You could help him,’ said Anwen, pushing her face close to Delphine’s. ‘You could take away his suffering.’
Delphine saw translucent blisters swelling on Daddy’s throat. Grubs waiting to hatch. His regrown eyeball popped.
‘He has no handmaiden,’ said Anwen. ‘Without servants a peer feels all the pain of the honours himself. Agony without end.’
‘Daddy! I’m here!’
‘Arthur!’ In his blindness, he groped for her, raw pink arms trailing steam.
‘It’s your daughter! It’s Delphy!’ Even at this distance, the heat was incredible. It stung her face, making her squint.
Daddy lowered his arms. Charred flesh on his neck crackled sickeningly as he turned towards her.
‘Delphy?’
‘Daddy. You’re hurt, but you’re going to be all right.’ She inhaled through her nostrils and smelt the coppery, bilious stink of roasting flesh.
Anwen’s breaths were quick gusts against her cheek.
‘You could lift his burden,’ said Anwen. ‘Or are you too proud?
Delphine felt strangely calm.
‘Daddy,’ said Delphine. ‘Stay still. Let me come to you. I will take your pain.’
Anwen stepped back.
‘Stay where you are, Daddy. I’m coming to you.’
She moved towards him. The heat was like a wall.
‘Stop!’ Daddy held up a palm.
Delphine kept walking.
‘Delphy! No!’ He clenched his hands into fists and slammed them to his temples. The air whistled and flexed.
All over his body, gouts of flame extinguished. The temperature dropped.
He staggered.
She ran to him, caught him. His skin was dry and warm, but not scalding.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘It’s all right. I’ve got you.’
‘I know.’
‘Oh God. I thought you’d burn for ever.’
‘Delphy.’ He clutched the neck of her cardigan and dragged her till his lips were at her ear. ‘I can feel it inside of me. I’m holding it in but it wants to come back. I can’t . . . I can’t stop it.’
She looked into his eyes. He looked back. He could see her. It was him.
‘I will take your pain for you,’ she said, her voice breaking. ‘You won’t hurt any more. We can be together forever.’
Daddy took a deep breath. He touched a hand to the fluid-filled growths on his throat. He smiled.
‘This is my burden.’
He began to back away.
‘No!’ Delphine tried to run after him but an arm caught her round the neck.
‘So this is your daughter?’ said Anwen.
Daddy halted. ‘Please, let her go.’
‘Joining the perpetuum is not a gift. It is a duty.’ Anwen brandished the Mauser in her right hand. Her voice shuddered with malice. ‘Duty requires sacrifice. She can be your payment. You must learn what it means to live as others die. I’ll take her from you as she took from me.’
Anwen stepped away and turned the gun on Delphine.
‘No!’ Daddy stepped forward. His heel fell on the length of black safety fuse snaking across the floor. Nothing happened, then –
An angry hiss came from under the arch of his foot. The fuse began burning in both directions, fierce orange flames with white hearts. Daddy grunted; coils of smoke twisted from his fingertips. Tendons stood out on his neck as he made a fist, squeezing the smoke in his hand till it extinguished.
Anwen glanced at the burning fuse. Delphine shoved her. Anwen stumbled. Delphine twisted out of her grip and ran for the fizzing fuse. She had to cut it, somehow. Daddy cried out. Delphine glanced back, saw Anwen aiming the Mauser.
There was nowhere to hide.
She closed her eyes.
A blast of flame.
CHAPTER 45
DON’T LOOK BACK
She opened her eyes. Daddy bowled into Anwen, blazing. The heat forced Delphine back. She threw her arms up.
Seconds later, she was rising.
Daddy had her by the scruff of her vest. His other hand was planted beneath her armpit.
‘I’ve got you.’
She dropped her arms. He was standing on the cusp of the channel, using the low wall as a step. As she watched, heatwarp made the stone flutter. Delphine felt herself lurch. She was sweating. Black waters boiled below. Overhead was the hole she had dropped through.
‘Go,’ said Daddy. ‘I can’t . . . hold it back . . . any longer.’ Behind his words, she heard the safety fuse, hissing.
Delphine swung for the lip of the hole with her crab hook. It was too far away. Daddy strained to hoist her higher. His temperature was rising. His palm was a branding iron pressed into the small of her back. He reached up, up.
‘Go,’ he said.
‘Don’t leave me!’ She tried to look back over her shoulder.
She heard Daddy inhale.
‘We’ll meet again.’
Delphine twisted to look. She saw Daddy, then Anwen rearing up behind him, the shattered beakmask pressed to her raw and smouldering face.
‘You . . . are not . . . leaving!’
Trembling yellow blisters the size of walnuts stood out on her skin. The paint on the beak bubbled and smoked. Anwen clawed at Daddy’s eye. Delphine turned towards the gap in the ceiling and lunged with the crab hook; Anwen howled; Daddy slipped.
Delphine felt metal bite metal.
She pulled for all she was worth. The crab hook had snagged one of the iron hooks in the opening. Pain made little suns burst round the edges of her vision.
Daddy let go.
The heat was blinding. Delphine opened her mouth to cry out but the air was sucked from her lungs. She sank, refused to submit.
No, no.
She pulled and struggled and raked the slimy rock with her fingernails, dragged at it, fought for it. Beneath her, a groan, a splash, a roaring hiss. She heaved her knee up into the bottom of the ice house well and pulled her other leg clear of the cavern.
‘Daddy!’ she called, but there was no answer, and even as the word rang off stone she was turning and scrabbling up the steep wet sides of the pit, digging the crab hook into cracks, smashing out chunks of mortar. She slipped, hit her head against the brickwork, swore, kept climbing. God please. God please. God please.
Her toecaps scraped on brick. The black damp ice house echoed with her breaths.
As she approached the top, she was choking, weeping. She didn’t have the strength. She felt her knees buckling, her fingers refusing to grip. She clutched at stone. They would not obey. She could not muster energy that was not there. She slipped backwards.
A shape solidified in the darkness.
A hand gripped the cuff of her cardigan and pulled.
Delphine kicked and flailed the final few feet, into the waiting arms of Mother.
Together, they stumbled towards the ice house doorway: a rectangle of blue night, the smell of grass.
They were in cold air, the hill rushing up. She heard the rumble a second before she hit the earth. The impact walloped the air out of her. The ground buzzed. Something struck her forehead.
She came to on her back on the wet hillside. Smoke hung in creepers. Mother lay beside her, not moving. Delphine moved her arm – a freezing pain. Her wrist was broken.
She gazed into the night sky. Flakes of ash fell in pale drifts.
How lovely, she thought as she slipped back into unconsciousness. It’s snowing.
INTERLUDE 3
He is choking on his teeth.
As Henry wakes, they catch in his throat and he coughs and clenches and vomits and cannot breathe. The ceramic dentures slip onto his tongue like an oily fish and he spits them out. They ooze down his cheek. He is on his back. His hot breath condenses on his face. He opens his eyes. He cannot see.
Some sort of material covers his face. Is he in a sack? Is he dead?
Not dead. His skull hurts.
He thinks he hears breathing. His hearing is exceptionally sharp. Best not to make any sudden movements, in case someone is watching him.
From the sound of it, he is in some kind of stone chamber. He relaxes his knees just a little.
No pain. The floor seems to tip and spin. Tears come to his eyes. Has it worked? Has it really worked?
He bites down. Full sets of upper and lower molars lock together, rooted, solid. He runs his tongue over the smooth backs of his incisors.
Everything they told him is true.
But what about Delphine? She needs him. He has to get back.
He sits up. In doing so, he realises two things.
First: he is not inside a sack, but his own clothes. As his head emerges from his waxed jacket, he sees his shirt sleeves sagging emptily, his trousers puddl
ed on the floor.
Second: he is not alone.
The giant of tarnished brass breathes. Its steaming armoured body rises, sinks. Behind the visor-slit shine familiar blue pupils.
The first blow catches him in the forehead. He sees white.
He is lying on his stomach. A crushing pain behind his eyeball makes him gasp. He smells vomit.
Instinctively, idiotically, he tries to get up. A shadow closes over him.
He braces for the second blow.
A gauntlet sweeps beneath his sternum. Plated fingers dig into his ribs. They lift.
He slams down over an armoured shoulder, spine-first. He is hanging upside-down, the gauntlet pinning him in place. The air is warm against his hairless legs as the giant turns.
He sees the cavern inverted. He sees Stokeham’s valet slumped against the wall, boots pointed inward, one eye open, the other a stoved-in crater. He smells the hops-and-petrol stink of the threshold. He hears the distant slap of gunfire.
As the giant begins to carry him away, Henry realises, with absolute certainty, he will never see home again. The cavern sways, shrinks. Vanishes.
This is the second blow.
EPILOGUE
December 1935
Delphine woke screaming from a dream of teeth and guts and eyes.
She sat up. The bedroom was black. A mauve wedge of moonlight picked out the brass handles of her wardrobe, the varnished shell of her carved tortoise.
It always took her a moment to remember where she was. Her old room. The Pastures. Home.
She swung her legs out of bed, her heart racing. She tucked her feet into her slippers, padded over to the wardrobe and took out her dressing gown. Her pyjamas clung to her sweaty skin as she fastened the two halves of the belt in a Flemish bend. It took her a couple of attempts. By the time the knot was secure, her breathing had returned to something near normal.
Delphine walked to the window. The world was brilliant with frost. She gazed, stunned by fields of flat deep white. Down in the garden, encircled by what looked like twelve large round stones, shone a single candle.
She went downstairs, closing her eyes, feeling the cool bannister beneath her palm. She smelt pipesmoke. It grew stronger as she entered the hall. She opened the door to the sitting room. Stockings hung around a rippling fire – fifteen in all, the longest on either end, a dozen little ones between. In the corner by the window stood a Christmas tree. Delphine left the door ajar and dropped into an armchair.