The Puppeteer King

by Chris Ward

  He had now lost her not once, but twice.

  Turning away before his eyes could fill with tears, Jun looked towards the balcony edge, just as a hooked claw reached up.

  ‘Help me.’ Crow’s claws scraped at the stone parapet, his grip too weak to get a hold. ‘Give me your hand, Matsumoto, and we’ll call it quits.’

  ‘Fuck yourself.’

  ‘I’m weak. That bastard was strong. I can’t hold on, which means all these people will die. Wouldn’t want that now, would you?’

  ‘Don’t touch him!’ Nozomi screamed as Jun let go of his rage and ran over to help. He couldn’t let these people die, even if it meant Crow had to live. He reached down for Crow’s clawed hand as the remains of the flaming cloak licked at the professor’s skin. His fingers closed over Crow’s hard, bony hand and he began to pull the professor up over the balcony.

  ‘Get away, Jun!’ Nozomi screamed. ‘Please!’

  Jun ignored her. He reached down to grab Crow’s other arm as the professor gasped, the flames licking at his back. The stench of burning human flesh was enough to make Jun’s eyes water. He shrugged away tears then looked up into Crow’s face, into those empty black eyes.

  ‘Sayonara,’ Crow muttered, his mouth twisting into a smirk, one hand slipping out of Jun’s and looping a wire around Jun’s neck. ‘Let’s go to Hell together, Jun Matsumoto.’

  ‘Jun!’ Nozomi screamed as Crow pulled Jun forward into an embrace and leaned back, a grin on his ugly face.

  Jun didn’t have time to scream as the churning mass of water, gasoline and people came up to meet them. A thousand faces flashed through his mind: his parents, and Akane: as a child, as the beautiful young lady she became, Ken and Karin, Nozomi, little Jorge and brave Jennie, whom he knew in a way he had loved as much as Akane; then they were gone, replaced by the face pulling the curtain on his life, that of the professor, the insane scientist, the one he knew as Crow.

  For the briefest of instants everything around him went quiet, cold and muffled, then a whump rose up around them and the air was filled with a bright, bright light. Jun tried to scream his last scream, but only the sloshing of the water and the roaring of flames gave him answer.

  #

  Jennie slammed her foot down, feeling the big truck respond like an old lion gearing up for one last kill.

  ‘Get close, then jump,’ Jorge shouted at her, pounding his fists on the dashboard like a cowboy urging on a horse. ‘Open doors!’

  Groups of people fled out of their way as they careened down an avenue of trees too thin for the truck, the branches cracking against the windscreen and then snapping away. The doors of the huge church came up in front of them, smaller than Jennie had imagined, two double wooden doors about ten foot tall with a stone pillar in the middle. There were a set of low steps leading up, and she could only hope the wheels of the truck were large enough to bounce up and over them.

  ‘Yes!’ Jorge shouted.

  She looked across at him. ‘Time to bail,’ she said. ‘When I count to three.’

  Jorge slid across the seat and pushed open the door. He pointed at a patch of shrubbery coming up on their left. ‘Sweet spot,’ he said, then twisted around and pointed right, at another dark cluster of bushes on Jennie’s side. ‘Yours is there.’

  Jennie kicked open the door and gave the boy a wry smile. ‘Three, two, one!’ she shouted, and Jorge was gone, leaping out into the air. Somewhere behind her she was sure she heard a rustle of branches, and prayed that the bushes were enough to break his fall.

  The door on her side flapped closed again. Without giving the patch of shrubbery receding in the remains of her mirror a second glance, Jennie set her sights on the door at the top of the steps and held the wheel steady.

  With the burst front tyre there was no way the truck would stay on course without someone at the wheel to hold it straight. She was the only chance left for the people inside, and if it meant the end of her, so be it.

  The church loomed above her, impossibly huge. ‘I hope you appreciate this, Jun,’ she whispered, her eyes filled with tears. ‘I hope I get a chance to hear you say thanks.’

  Almost as an afterthought she reached up with her spare hand and pulled the seat belt down across her, clipping it in. Like a detonator’s click, the remains of the bumper struck the first of the steps a second after, the truck jerked, the cab bouncing up off the ground, then it slammed into the closed doors with a massive crunch of wood and metal.

  For a second there was a silence that was almost eerie. Then a wall of water and flame and human bodies rushed out of the church to engulf her.

  44

  Survivors

  The plane touched down just before midnight. The Grey Man, wearing a hood over his face, was escorted to a waiting vehicle which took him to an exclusive, secretive hotel some ten miles outside the limits of Barcelona.

  He let porters take his scant luggage to his room, and instructed the driver to carry on towards the city.

  Within a couple of miles they came to military roadblocks. The Grey Man instructed the driver to let him out, then he walked some way off the road and passed the roadblocks on foot.

  A couple of hours later houses began to rise up around him.

  Where are you?

  At first he felt a reluctance for Galo to answer. He could sense his charge there, just beyond his probing mind.

  I am not angry. I have seen what this man has caused.

  I failed.

  The Grey Man gave a slow nod. He was angry, but it happened. He had failed once himself, although that was many years ago.

  Failure is part of growth, provided you learn from it.

  ‘I have learned a lot this night,’ Galo said, stepping out of the darkness. The Grey Man caught the scent of charred skin long before he glimpsed Galo’s injuries in the moonlight. Galo’s hair was almost all gone, his clothes a charred ruin.

  ‘I was beneath the gasoline pipe when it ignited,’ he said. ‘My pain is unimaginable, but my disappointment is greater.’

  ‘Return with me. You can rest a while.’

  They began to walk side by side back towards the military roadblock, crossing over deserted farmland as a glimmer of dawn light appeared in the east.

  ‘Catalonia has declared independence,’ the Grey Man said. ‘There will be a civil war. Such upheaval, created by one man.’

  ‘It is almost a shame that he died.’

  ‘Are you sure he did?’

  ‘It is inevitable.’

  ‘We will keep watch, and wait. If he survived … I would very much like to talk to this man.’

  ‘What about the customer?’

  ‘I will talk to him. He will understand.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ Galo said again.

  The Grey Man knew that a father would wrap his arm around his son and tell him to forget his troubles. He looked at Galo for a few seconds, then looked away.

  ‘We must hurry,’ he said. ‘It will soon be light.’

  #

  Jennie woke in a bed. Something was wrapped over her face, and she started to scream, trying to lift her hands to tear it away, but her arms felt wrong, constricted.

  ‘Calm down,’ came a soothing female voice, and then her sight returned with the removal of a towel from her eyes. The brightness made her blink, and it was a few seconds before everything came into focus.

  She was in a private hospital room. A couple of innocuous prints hung from the walls, and the comforting click and hum of machinery came from a large steel box beside her bed.

  ‘Alive!’

  Jorge jumped up from a chair at the foot of her bed and ran around to tap her bandaged hand in a tentative high-five. Jennie just smiled as the nurse tried to shoo him away.

  ‘He’s been sitting there for days,’ she said in English. ‘Waiting for you to get better.’

  ‘Am I?’ Jennie asked. ‘Am I getting better?’

  The nurse nodded. ‘You’ll be fine. You broke your collar bone and your left wris
t, and you’ve suffered some minor burns and what seems to be a bullet wound, but you were lucky.’ The nurse lowered her eyes. ‘Many weren’t.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The police are still trying to figure it all out. You’ve been sedated for a week, but there are a lot of people who want to talk to you. You’re a heroine. You saved thousands of lives by breaking through those doors.’

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Madrid. Most of the survivors were air-lifted here. On top of this disaster, Catalonia has declared independence from Spain.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Hopefully they can come to some settlement.’

  Jun’s face flashed into her mind. ‘I … I had a friend who was inside … Do you know what might have happened to him?’

  The nurse shook her head. ‘They’re still sifting through the wreckage, trying to identify the victims. It could take weeks.’

  ‘Oh.’ Jennie felt a lump in her stomach, and couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  ‘You should rest now. I’ll let the little man fill you in.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  #

  Shivering.

  The sewer system was freezing, the cold stone turning the water into a kind of icy sludge. He wrapped his charred arms around his naked body and scrambled on, trying to find light.

  One eye would never see again. Seared closed, he had felt the pain as it popped beneath the raging flames, and the fluid still stank as it dribbled down his cheek. For nearly a week he had crawled through the tunnels, occasionally falling into a delirious sleep, other times feeding on the rats that came to gnaw on his body, or drinking from the sewage water until it made him choke and vomit. Pain destroyed him, pulling his body apart from the inside, but he knew that if he could just stay alive he would find a way back.

  There, up ahead, was a glimmer of light.

  He crawled towards it, the blisters on the palms of his hands and knees screaming as they burst beneath the rough, unforgiving rock. He was shaking with infection, colours shifting in front of his eye until he wasn’t sure what was real and what was a hallucination brought on by starvation and suffering.

  Then he felt something grainy beneath his hands, and he cupped it and let it slide between his fingers.

  Sand.

  He crawled out on to the rugged, empty beach, the wintery sun making him squint through his one good eye. Like a demon spat from the bowels of the earth, he crawled away from the sewage outlet, into a pool of cool, salty water that lapped around him, cleansing the filth from his body.

  He was still alive.

  Sometimes, that was enough.

  Epilogue

  Six months later

  * * *

  Park heard the sound of the man’s approaching footsteps crunching through the snow. He turned around to find himself faced with a towering, hooded shadow, the man seven feet tall at least, backlit by a distant streetlight further along the dock.

  ‘They call you the Grey Man,’ Park said. ‘They said you were the best, but you failed. I want my money back.’

  The man’s voice was like the rumble of thunder. ‘No. I used it.’

  Park’s fingers closed over the gun in his coat pocket. He had brought it for protection only, but his anger was taking control.

  ‘You didn’t kill him.’

  ‘But I can assure you he is dead.’

  ‘Where’s my evidence? How do you know?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘You’re angering me, Mr. Grey.’

  ‘Your anger is of no concern to me.’

  Park pulled the gun from his pocket before he could stop himself and held it up, pointing it at Grey’s chest.

  ‘Your time is over, Mr. Park. The world has moved on.’

  ‘Fuck you!’

  Park fired. The gun was silenced, but a dull thud still rang out across the abandoned docks, echoing out to sea.

  ‘Foolish.’

  Grey hadn’t moved. He still stood in front of Park, unflinching. How could that be? Park had fired at point-blank range.

  Something landed in the snow.

  ‘Save the rest of your bullets, Mr. Park. I might have use of your weapon.’

  Park gritted his teeth and tried to fire again, but his finger wouldn’t move. It was stuck rigid as if controlled by gravity itself.

  ‘What…?’

  His voice cut off in his throat. He felt a terrible squeezing, as if invisible hands had closed around his neck. Gasping for air, he dropped the gun and reached up, his hands stopping in mid-air a few inches from his throat, closing over thickened wind as if arms had grown out of the very air itself.

  As Park gave one last gasping croak and collapsed to his knees, the Grey Man stepped forward.

  ‘You had your chance to walk away, Mr. Park. Goodbye now.’

  #

  The Grey Man lifted Park’s body by one hand and dropped him over the side of the port, into the freezing water. Maybe his remains would be discovered in the spring, when the ice melted. It didn’t matter. Park was friendless, and the Grey Man and Galo would be long gone by then.

  He pocketed Park’s gun, then rubbed the wound on his palm where the bullet had struck. It had broken the skin and lodged into the bone, but it would heal in a few days. Almost as an afterthought, he scooped up the fallen bullet from the snow, along with the snow stained with his own blood, and dropped it into the water. No point leaving footprints behind, just in case.

  He walked back along the portside, staring out at the deep blue of the ice in the water. At times it reminded him of Baikal, in the days before the change, and he felt a skewed sense of longing for his old life.

  It was nearly time to move, to change names again, to set up from scratch, leaving no trail behind. It had become tiresome, but such things were necessary. One day, he hoped, he could find a place to settle in, to make a real life.

  Professor Kurou’s body had still not turned up six months after the disaster. It was possible he was still out there somewhere. From what Galo had told him, and what he had seen of Kurou’s skills, the man was like no other.

  If he ever had the chance, he would very much like to meet with Professor Kurou.

  #

  It was a warm spring day when Ken was let outside for the first time. Nozomi stood by the doors of the hospice, waiting as her father was wheeled down the hallway towards her.

  He looked tentative as she leaned down to hug him, then relaxed as her arms encircled his neck.

  ‘You look so much better.’

  He smiled. She had never got used to seeing him in a wheelchair, but the doctors had finally managed to make progress. A fist-sized generator had been fitted into his chair to control the bizarre flood of electricity that made him impossible to touch without protective equipment. After extensive surgery both of his arms were now free of Professor Kurou’s wires and Ken had even begun to play the guitar again. The doctors hoped that within a year he might be able to walk, and that with the removal of the rest of the wires, the plaguing electric current might end.

  As Nozomi looked down at the scars that ran up her own arms, she could almost understand what he had gone through.

  ‘Daddy, are you sure you can handle this? It’s a long journey.’

  Ken nodded. ‘I need to. You understand, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Jennie and Jorge were waiting in the parking lot, next to a plush hired sedan. Jennie gave Ken a hug, and he thanked her for looking after Nozomi for so long.

  ‘And this is the young man you’ve been telling me about?’ Ken smiled and reached out to shake Jorge’s hand.

  Nozomi smiled. ‘My boyfriend,’ she said with a sense of pride, making both herself and Jorge blush.

  ‘Pleased to meet such a badass guitar man,’ Jorge said in English, then added in basic Japanese, ‘I’m happy to meet you.’

  ‘You’re almost as cool in the flesh as you are in Nozomi’s stories,’ Ken said. ‘Just look after my daug
hter until they let me out of here, okay?’

  Jorge lifted his hands in a devil’s horn rock salute. ‘Okay.’

  #

  Two hours later they arrived in a small town on the outskirts of Saitama. Nozomi pushed Ken up the path towards a new grave near the back of the cemetery, one with fresh flowers standing in a steel pot. Several rain-damaged Plastic Black Butterfly CDs had been left on a ledge of the granite monument, making Ken smile as he read the carved inscription:

  * * *

  Jun Matsumoto

  Son, brother, uncle, friend, singer

  LEGEND

  Remembered Always

  1996-2026

  * * *

  ‘Damn,’ he whispered. ‘He took so many. Why’d he have to take you too?’

  ‘It’s okay, Daddy,’ Nozomi said, stroking his arm as tears filled his eyes. ‘It’s okay.’

  Jun’s body had been found in the burnt out shell of La Sagrada Familia. Parts of the church had been destroyed by explosives drilled into the walls and it was estimated that it would take ten years or more to repair the damage.

  Jun’s body was returned to Japan, where it was cremated and interred into his family tomb in Saitama.

  Jennie, Nozomi, and Jorge all attended the ceremony.

  Nozomi had survived the fire unscathed, hiding in a back passage as the floor of the nave caught alight. Jorge had been found wandering around outside, unharmed after leaping from the truck, while Jennie’s injuries had healed after minor surgery.

  Aside from a couple of obligatory press conferences, Jennie declined all offers from the media. More than three hundred people had died and many others had suffered severe burns, but thousands had been saved, many with just minor injuries. A photograph of a young girl called Elenora Vasquez hugging her parents outside the burning church had swamped the press as a symbol of hope and human survival, but Jennie had wanted to stay out of the spotlight.