by Paul Cornell
They formed up in front of the door, in the way they’d rehearsed. No battering ram this time. Costain aimed the gun at the lock. Quill looked to the others, saw they were ready. His own anger radiated back from them, looking more certain than he was, even. Seriously strung out. At the end of everything now. Ross looked determined, as if she was ready to die. He turned back to Costain and nodded.
The noise was loud in the corridor. The lock flew off and the door was smashed open under Quill’s kick. They dived inside.
Quill felt as if he was moving in slow motion, in a nightmare. He heaved the gun up to firing level, remembering the words of his instructor on the range: not opening fire from the hip, but stock against shoulder, ready to fire one shot then assess again; not waiting for a sight picture to fire the gun, but going by sense of direction . . .
But then he saw the cage, and the child inside it. She sat curled up and terrified. She’d been left on her own here, Losley needing only one now she was remembered, one who was so important to Quill, because – although he still didn’t know her, still didn’t feel their connection – he saw her face and knew she was meant to be his.
‘Daddy!’ she yelled.
Losley herself was standing over the cauldron. It was bubbling, boiling. She was already turning. The cauldron was sparking, had started suddenly blazing with noise, he realized. He heard the thunder distantly from beside him. And then the same roar was exploding off Losley herself, Costain letting off a full burst at her, sending her staggering back, pieces flying from her body, making her scream. Quill tried to join in, tried to fire, but all he could think of was the ricochets, and where all those rounds were going. Costain was yelling something as he fired. Sefton was now ahead of him, Ross beside him, both rushing at the tub of soil. They had in their hands condoms full of London holy water. If the spray hadn’t worked, then maybe this holy hand grenade would. Quill saw them fly aside, bouncing off of whatever was protecting the tub, as the bullets had bounced off of the cauldron. He skidded to a halt and made sure he could aim properly, and Losley was swimming back through the air towards him, flesh hanging off her, her face and body unprotected, but somehow still invulnerable. He fired. He kept it aimed straight at her as she rushed forward, the missiles ripping apart her clothes and her body. He fired it into her face.
With a great scream, she spread her hands wide.
Quill flew backwards. He hit the wall, and the gun was wrenched from his hands. He tried to heave himself up, but he was pinned there. Thump-thump-thump from around the room, and there they were, all four of them stuck up against the walls. Sefton threw something from one hand, but it fell back over him.
Then there was only the noise of the radio. The bubbling of the cauldron. The screaming of the child. The terror of Jessica. She was standing at the door of her cage, saying ‘Daddy’ over and over, in between howls that he’d never heard from a child before. Quill deliberately looked away from her, and finally spotted the cat. It was at the window, covered by fine drapery in here, by rough rugs from outside. It was staring in horror at Costain, looking as if it was wondering if this could somehow be its fault.
‘You keep trying.’ Losley stepped towards them. Her flesh was hanging from her in folds, great sidelong scars of it, ripped from her by the bullets, as if she’d been savagely scourged. Her face was a skull with one eye, the other eye a mass of blood. Her thin muscles held together visible bones. She was like something from a museum, or animated out of a plague pit. ‘I can repair damage. This doesn’t hurt. This is good. Now you can watch with me. Let us wait for a goal.’
‘There won’t be a goal,’ said Quill.
‘I know men. There will be a goal.’
And, at that point, the whistle blew for the end of the first half.
Sefton knew this was the moment. His holdall lay across his feet. He couldn’t reach it, but that didn’t matter. All that was in there, anyway, was a bunch of London stuff, more bloody marker pens. Those were just things. He had to go beyond. ‘That must take some doing,’ he said, looking Losley up and down. ‘Holding yourself together like that. And you haven’t had a sacrifice lately.’
‘But I am remembered now.’ She sounded tremendously proud of it. ‘They all know who I am. I can feel the tide of London supporting me. I knew it would, one day. I knew, if I waited long enough, it would come to me.’
‘The Witch of West Ham.’
‘Yes!’ She laughed and moved her hands in a gesture which made them all flinch, but turned out to be the first move of some ancient court dance, which spun her about the floor, making bloody spirals from the severed gristle trailing at her ankles. The dance took her to the cage, where she stopped, a smile on her face.
‘Don’t you touch her!’ screamed Quill.
‘Tell me again not to.’ She reached down and unbolted the cage, picked up the child and held her, as she squirmed and squealed. ‘Look at this new thing. What everybody thinks is so wonderful. But it’s got no history. People fool themselves into thinking it does, that it’ll be more of them, a new branch on a tree. But it could be anything. You don’t decide. It’s just chaos. A football team or a city, that’s growth, that’s a proper use of time. Never all of it replaced at once, always a tradition, always memory. I could dash this thing against the floor and you could just make another one.’ She raised the child, as if to do it. Quill yelled something again, thrashing against the wall. But she shook her head. ‘But that’s the last thing I’m going to do. I need her for the sacrifice. The pot is ready. Your feelings on hearing her screams, on understanding how long I can continue them with proper care and use of the ladle . . . that will be a magnificent sacrifice to my lord.’
Sefton waited to hear what he needed to hear.
Ross was trying to contain her fury. She was only pleased that it wasn’t fear. ‘We know who you are,’ she said. It was nearly a playground thing, a pathetic attempt to demonstrate some childish power. ‘We know who your mistress was, where you lived, so don’t you tell us this is just business.’
Losley cocked her head on one side. ‘What?’
‘You were a victim, someone who had all their power taken away from them in a terrible way. Like every serial killer. Now you want to hurt someone else who’s powerless, just to get even with the world. Like every serial killer. What goes around comes around, that’s you. The witch bit, that’s just a bonus. You know how many movies and TV shows about your mistress there are? They remember her. Sometimes they say she was a witch.’
Losley screamed at her. ‘She was not!’
‘—and sometimes she’s a victim. And, I tell you what, Henry VIII? Jolly fat bloke. Threw meat over his shoulder. And you’re not in it. Where are you in it? I read that Anne Boleyn was never at that house of yours at all. How are you in it, again? You’re not a witch, you’re just a serial killer. You’re a scared little girl who started off by hurting animals. Not done for anything. Not for a mistress who left you—’ Ross’ head was slammed against the wall with such force that it left blackness rolling around the edge of her vision. But she bellowed against the pain and heaved herself forward again, and found that in the pain there was certainty to her words now. ‘You’re not doing it to me again, you bitch! Don’t you dare think everyone in that phone book’s on your side! You’re not even fooling yourself, so how can you fool us?!’
‘These are just words.’ Sefton watched as Losley, carrying the child, turned to look between them all. ‘You cannot wish me away! I am . . .’ And she actually paused, as if needing to take a breath.
Sefton realized what had started up on the radio: ‘Chasing Cars’ by Snow Patrol. The commentator said it was being played at the ground as images redolent of missing children, Losley’s unknown victims down the years, abandoned toys and empty nurseries, appeared onscreen. That was what he’d got Quill to ask Lofthouse to arrange. Now – he had to do this now! ‘What’s the matter, Mora?’ he called out. ‘Is it taking more of an effort to make them all forget? Now that they�
�re all trying so hard to remember? ’Cos you’ve got to work at it, haven’t you? All those victims, over all those years, anyone who’s still alive, you’ve got to keep on spending your energy to do it.’ He saw her expression falter, the realization starting to creep over her face. ‘Yeah, I’ve got it right, haven’t I? That’s how it bloody works! And it’s not just the ones at the ground now. It’s the ones watching on telly, maybe a lot of them who’re only just realizing that they’re missing someone. Maybe a lot of them, all over London, starting to pull more and more energy from you. You can’t help it, you set it in place, so you can’t just let them remember!’
Mora was actually starting to stagger now. Sefton understood it in that moment: he’d found his voice. He was changing the world with every word. And they were words about London, words often said in the accent of his school tormentors. London was giving him power now. The very ones who’d tried to hurt him had given him this weapon. They’d made his tongue into a sword.
He heaved himself away from the wall. He saw the others trying and managing to do the same. Losley didn’t know which way to turn. Clutching the child, she looked as if she couldn’t believe it. ‘How’s it feel now, then?’ he asked. ‘Still feel that all London’s on your side? They’re not all remembering you now – they’re trying to remember something else!’
Suddenly she looked right at him. ‘You understand,’ she said. And it was with a look of such amazement, as if she was seeing him for the first time as a person.
He stopped himself from goading at her further. In the same way Muhammad Ali had stopped himself landing another punch once he saw, in his most famous fight, that George Foreman was already falling to the ground. He had been made this way by his tormentors. But he was not like them. Or like her.
‘No,’ he said.
All Quill could see was Jessica trapped in Losley’s hands. He had just one moment. One moment now that Losley’s power was being undermined by what was going on at the stadium, and while she didn’t seem to know what to do next. He dragged a breath into his lungs. ‘You, Mora Losley,’ he bellowed, giving in to everything he was and wanted to be, ‘are nicked!’ And he threw himself forward at her, intending to rip the child from her hands.
But in that second just before he reached her—
Her hand slashed across. The room was suddenly falling sideways. Quill tried to throw himself across the gap, but now he didn’t know which way he was falling. ‘She’s trying to leg it again!’ he shouted. ‘Stop her!’
But the room was folding up again, angling towards that red door, which had again become the plughole at the bottom of the world.
‘Stand like coppers!’ yelled Sefton. ‘Compose yourselves!’
The room folded around them, missed them, became an arrow darting for the door, with the streak of what had been the mounted head outside bursting in at the last moment, and then—
They were standing there in the tattered shell of a squat. Losley had gone. And she’d taken Jessica with her.
‘No!’ bellowed Quill. ‘No, no, no!’
TWENTY-NINE
Costain heard the noise, under whatever Quill was shouting. He looked over to the inner door, and then he ran towards it.
The cat was lodged in the gap. The force of the inner door had bent it almost in two. Blood was pouring from its mouth. Costain grabbed the door and pulled. The cat fell, breathing heavily. ‘I . . . tried to follow her. I was too slow. And then something went from its eyes, and it lay there empty. Costain found the blood pounding in his head. He squatted down and put his hand on the cat’s body. It was utterly cold, immediately. He couldn’t feel for it. He couldn’t find anything in himself to do that. After all, it was just a cat.
He made himself stand up. He grabbed the door again and swung it wide open. The force that had tried to close it had cut off once the cat got in the way. Some sort of inbuilt safety mechanism. He made himself step through first . . . into complete darkness beyond.
The others followed, Sefton using a wooden stake as a wedge to hold the door open. Quill got his torch out of his pocket and switched it on. They were at a T-junction in a corridor made of . . . Costain couldn’t work out what it was made of. It was like rock, but utterly smooth, as if it had been made of something artificial. The surface showed no natural blemish or roughness. The corridor smelt of old houses.
‘Which way did she go?’
They tried left, then right, and found themselves with further options branching off from both directions. If they were now in a tunnel between Losley’s houses, it was between many of them, presumably all of them. Of Losley herself there was no sign. They made themselves be silent, and listened. There was no sound in the distance.
Sefton looked down. ‘Soil,’ he said, squatting to touch a thread of it that ran down the centre of the corridor, looking strange on the material. ‘Which, of course, means West Ham soil. Which means she needs to take power from it for some reason. So this line would form a sort of . . . power cable. Connecting all her houses. What goes between those houses? Her home, the furniture, all that stuff. So these lines must provide energy for . . . for moving all that.’
‘Didn’t help her much in Brockley,’ said Quill, ‘when she could only appear down in the street.’
‘Because you put that rubber wedge in the door then,’ said Sefton. ‘She must have sort of shorted out this system, by pushing against it. She had got all her stuff away, but not herself.’
Quill looked at his watch. ‘The match restarts in five minutes.’
Sefton reached into his holdall and produced the vanes. ‘These work with stuff that’s right in front of you,’ he said. ‘Like this soil is right now. If there’s power flowing through it . . .’ He held the vanes as he had before. Everyone fell silent. The rods moved, just a touch, towards the left.
Sefton set off in that direction at a jog, and they all followed.
It was, thought Ross, as if they were running inside London itself. Not like in the underground, but inside something fundamental. She could imagine these routes connecting houses like spokes of a wheel, an alternative tube map where the distances were even less related to real geography. She wished her dad had got to see some of this, had got to try the amazing things Toshack had discovered, instead of being used as . . . fuel for them. If that had happened, would she herself have become part of the crime family? Had her desire for revenge just made her choose another gang? She pushed that fragile thinking down inside her. She would do this anyway. This would complete her life. Fuck everything else. Fuck everything afterwards.
Quill ran, following Sefton, aware of time running out, aware of that possibility that he could one day love his child or, being more honest with himself, of that other possibility of terrible emotional harm being done to his wife.
He had still said it, though: ‘You’re nicked,’ had still been that bloke, and maybe he’d never change.
He heard a sound from ahead. The radio! They all broke into a sprint together. Quill followed Sefton, his heart pounding, left– right–left down choices of corridor. And there was a closed door ahead. And the sound was coming from behind that door.
Quill suppressed a great yell and rushed at it.
He smashed down the door and raised the gun to aim . . .
. . . at his own child.
Losley, or the tattered bloody mess that remained of her, was standing over the cauldron, still bubbling, now in a different shape of room. She’d spun with Jessica in her arms, astonished upon astonished. Jessica hung over the water.
‘And it’s still nil–nil,’ the voice from the radio was saying, ‘and let’s hope it stays that way.’
Quill and the others moved steadily forward, Quill and Costain both keeping their weapons trained on Losley.
‘Put the kid on the floor,’ said Costain.
‘Of course not,’ said Losley. ‘The ceremony is complete. I am ready to make the sacrifice that will give me the power to once again avenge my football club.’ Bu
t she made no move to attack them. Her face had a terrible stillness to it. Maybe she had nothing left.
‘Zoretska’s retrieved the ball, he’s going to knock it to the young defender, Faranchi. It’s like a training exercise out here, West Ham hanging back as much as the opposing team. There were a few early forays at goal, but there seems to have been a dressing-room talk at half time, and nobody’s had a go in the second half.’
‘Human nature seems to be doing all right,’ said Ross. ‘They’re not going to score for you. Are you sure you know men?’
‘We can make a deal,’ said Quill. ‘Make everything right again. You remove the Sight from us, serve your time for the murders, and we’ll—’
Losley’s laughter drowned him out.
‘Yeah, you fucker,’ he said, nodding along with her, ‘but I felt I had to make the offer.’
‘West Ham developing this strong left side of the field, which can – oh no!’
Quill froze at the sound in the announcer’s voice. A huge roar was coming from the stadium.
Losley tensed in anticipation.
‘It bounced off Faranchi’s boot! And the goalkeeper’s taken by surprise! He’s running after it. It’s rolling into . . .! It’s gone in! West Ham have scored an own goal!’
Losley whirled round and stared at the radio. She looked as if she’d been physically struck by something that had impaled her at an angle to all her world’s rules.
Quill leaped at her. She threw a gesture at him that was little more than a slap, but it still sent him sprawling. But the others had rushed in, were between her and the cauldron. Costain had his gun up, ready to try for a shot, but Jessica was in the way.
Suddenly, Losley ran for the outside door, taking Jessica with her. ‘Hold your fire!’ yelled Quill. He rushed after her, and the others ran too.
Ross was just behind Quill as they burst out onto a balcony, the sudden chill of night air providing a shock to her senses. Losley was standing on the parapet along the far edge, a three-storey drop below her, open land stretching behind her, leading across to another long low apartment building. The sound of match commentaries echoed from a thousand satellite dishes all along the balconies, a sea of lights glowing behind curtains. And already people were stepping out of their doorways, yelling and pointing, turbans and burqas, football shirts and chav caps. Losley grasped Jessica, with a small gleaming knife set against her ribs. She had a coil of twine already wrapped around the child’s neck, the noose held firmly in her other hand.