Kraken

by China Miéville

  “Look,” said one. “His lips are moving. He’s praying to his snail again.”

  “Stupid Jewish snail scum,” said another.

  “Woof,” the dogman Nazi said.

  “Where’s Billy, you scum?”

  “Where’s the squid?”

  “Your dead squid won’t save you.”

  They all laughed. They stood in the windowless room. They hesitated. “Stupid Jew,” said one. They laughed again.

  There are only so many ways to experience pain. There are an almost limitless number of ways to inflict it, but the pain itself, initially vividly distinct in all its specificities, becomes, inevitably, just pain. Not that Dane was indifferent to the idea of more of it: he shivered as the men mocked him. But he had been surprised that they had taken him twice to the point of death through their bladey interventions and he had still not told them that he knew where the kraken was, nor who had it, nor where Billy might be. That last he did not know himself, but he could certainly have given them leads, and he had not, and they were at a loss.

  Still he kept nearly weeping. Dane kept praying.

  “You can stop your whining,” one of the Nazis said. “You’re alone. No one knows where you are. Nothing can help. Nothing’s coming to save you.”

  HAD THE SEA WAITED JUST FOR THAT MOMENT? DID IT COME WITH a sense of theatre, pausing in the pipework that infested the house as pipes infest all houses, listening for just such an announcement to refute? Whatever: the stars aligned, everything came together for that perfect beat, and just but exactly as if in answer, brine burst every piece of plumbing in the house, and the building began to bleed sea.

  Saltwater ripped through the walls. It buckled the floor. Lovingly gilted World War Two knickknacks spilled into new holes.

  The Nazis scattered, ran, did not know where to run. Dane shouted without words. Rage, elation, hope and violence. Water gulped at the Nazis; seawater freezing and London muddy sucked and pulled them down with eddies and undertows it imported from its wide ocean self. Some reached the stairs, but more than one was felled by misplaced waves and brutally kept under, and, bewilderingly, in inches in the city, began to drown.

  The water reached Dane’s chin. He wondered if it would kill him too. He’d mind, he realised, he would, he would. Kraken let me breathe.

  The Nazis ascending the stairs were met. Billy’s phaser cut them down. No stunning now. He descended, shooting as he came. He sent a poker-hot ray scorching through the fur on the Hitler-worshipping dogman. Turning into the torture room Billy growled like a goddamn animal and shot many times while the sea roared and smashed the Nazi bric-a-brac from wall to wall and sunk it as if at the bottom of the world.

  “Dane,” he said. “Dane, Dane, Dane.” He knelt in the swells. Dane wheezed and smiled. Billy took a hacksaw to his bonds. “You’re alright,” Billy said. “You’re okay. We got here in time. Before they did anything.”

  And Dane even actually laughed at that, as he flopped free from his crooked starburst constraint.

  “No, mate,” he whispered. “You’re too late. Twice. Never mind though, eh?” He laughed again and it was bad. “Never mind though. It’s good to see you, man.” He leaned on Billy like someone much more wounded than he looked, and Billy was confused.

  “They’re blocking the way out,” Billy said. Nazis from other rooms were massed at the top of the stairs and firing down with Third Reich weaponry. “Here,” said Billy, and gave Dane his gun. Dane stood a little straighter. “Are you with me, Dane?” Billy said. Dane did something, aimed and fired up the stairs. There were a lot of them up there.

  “I’m with you,” he said. He looked at the weapon. His voice croaked back to something like normal. “Works okay.”

  “We can’t get out that way,” Billy said.

  As if in answer, certainly in answer, the sea gave a rocking swell and receded very fast, fast enough to take a great chunk of flooring with it. It left a hole in the centre of the room, a smeary slipping hollow the size of another room, broken by the stubs of pipes and the ruins of masonry. The sea poured violently back out and tore a gap as it went, sluicing from the pit to some half-used end of sewer or old river-run, opening into the labyrinth.

  “Can you?” Billy said, and braced him. Dane nodded. They braced and careened in a cold, dangerous slide into the mud and receding seawater, and into the cavern.

  They stared up through the fingering pipes and the slurry of brickwork, the dirty cascade, into the dinge of the room. Faces peered over the lip. Billy and Dane fired volleys, hallooing, smacking twisted features from sight. In the second of silence that followed they ran into the slime under everything, and from there, dripping like fresh clay golems, into the dark tunnels of London.

  PART FIVE

  RISE TOWARD DESCENT

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  IT WAS VERY LATE. IT HAD BEEN A WHILE SINCE ANYONE HAD actually questioned Jason, let alone smacked him around. Collingswood had come into his cell from time to time, with a bad-dream loop of questions, but he had not seen her for hours.

  Food and drink was pushed through the slot. His shouted requests for a phone, for attention, for bacon sandwiches were never answered. There was a chemical toilet in the corner of his cell that he had long since given up threatening to tell Amnesty International about. Without Collingswood or another realitysmith around to dampen his knack, his jailers all half-recognised him, knew they knew him, and given that he was not—could not be, look, he was in a cell—a colleague, reasoned that he had to be a career villain, and their behaviour to him had worsened.

  When Jason heard footsteps, a whisper echoing in the hall, he did not expect whoever it was to slow or stop. But they did, right outside his cell, and unlocked his door.

  An officer opened it. A man, framed in the doorway, staring in weird stillness. He looked grey and very sick. Someone was behind him. The officer was not looking at Jason. He stared at the wall above Jason’s head, swallowing, swallowing. There was someone behind him webbed with shadows shed by fluorescent lights. Whispering.

  “Is it …?” Jason began, and ran out of what to say.

  A child peered around the doorframe. A man behind him whispered into the policeman’s ear, leaning like a windblown tree into sight on one side of his escort, then swaying to the other, playful tick-tock, winking with his left then his right eye at Jason from behind the officer’s back.

  “Christine!” the drab-coated man said to Jason. “Is it you?”

  Jason knew who the man and the boy were then, and he flattened himself against the wall and began to scream.

  “I KNOW!” SAID GOSS, STEPPING INTO THE ROOM, ESCORTING THE officer. Subby pushed the door closed behind them with the careful preciseness of a young child. Jason screamed and crawled backward on his bed.

  The policeman was closing his eyes and weeping and whispering, “I’m sorry shhh I didn’t stop now I didn’t mean to please don’t please.”

  “I know!” said Goss again.

  “Stop it!” Goss giggled. “It’s a secret, you’ll ruin it, stop it!” He breathed out smoke.

  He pushed the officer at Jason with a whispered word, and the man not even opening his eyes felt for Jason’s screaming mouth and blocked it with his hand and whispered, “Shhhh shhhh stop stop you have to you have to.” Jason ran out of breath to make sound behind the palm. The policeman and prisoner held onto each other.

  Someone’s going to come, Jason thought, there are cameras, someone’s going to, but would Goss be here without crossing those ts? Dotting those is? He tried to scream again.

  “You two are terrible,” said Goss. “You said we was meeting at the bus station, and then Mike came and I didn’t know where to look!” He sat on the bench and sidled up to Jason. “Hey,” he whispered shyly. He tapped the cop on the shoulder. The man whimpered. “Subby wants to show you something. He found a beetle. Go on and take a look, there’s a love.”

  “Shhh, shhh,” the man kept saying, weeping from under closed
lids. He took his hand from Jason’s mouth and Jason could not make a noise. Subby took the officer’s hand. The man shuffled at the child’s pace to the corner of the room and stood facing away from Goss and Jason, facing the cement angle.

  “I was all over the place,” Goss said. “I was out on holiday. Got a nice tan. Was looking for stuff. Not seen the waiter? The waiting boy in the dollhouse? I had a present for him.” Goss put a finger to Jason’s lips.

  “So,” he said. “Clarabelle said she fancies you.” He pushed his finger harder onto Jason’s face. Pushed him to the wall. “I said to her what? And she goes ‘Yeah, can you believe it?’” Pushed the lip into Jason’s teeth. Subby swung the policeman’s hand like they were going for a walk. “She’s going to be at the park tonight. Are you coming down later?” Goss split the skin so blood welled into Jason’s mouth. “Where’s Billy? Where’s Dane?”

  “Oh God oh God I don’t know I swear Jesus …” Jason said. Goss did not move his finger, so Jason sputtered past it, sputtering his blood and spit onto Goss, who did not wipe himself. Goss pushed and pushed and Jason whined as his lip was ground against his top teeth. The policeman stood where Subby held his hand obediently facing away, whimpered and seemed to clutch the boy’s hand harder as if for comfort.

  “Do you remember when she was in Geography with us and he kept nicking all the pens for the overhead projector?” Goss said. “I knew you liked her then. I know you did stuff for Dane, that’s why you’re here, where is he?” Pushed and Jason whined and then shrieked as with the crunching snap of a ruined pencil Goss pushed an incisor out of its socket so it dangled into his mouth.

  “I don’t know I don’t know,” Jason said, “Billy called me, Jesus, please I don’t know …”

  “I didn’t even know she was still in our year. Look at me. Look at me. You alright, Subbster? Are you looking after my little brother okay, mister?” Goss smiled and met Jason’s eyes. Kept his finger all blood-wet on Jason’s lips. “Clarabelle said she might bring Petra so we could all four of us go into town. Your friend took something I want back. Where is he? Otherwise I’m going to have to call off tonight.”

  “Oh God I don’t know I don’t, listen, listen, he gave me a number, that’s all, there’s a number, I can tell you it …”

  “Numbers rumpus schampers grampus orca Belinda. Where’s them lads? I think I can see what you want to say down in your mouth, shall I get it? Shall I get it? Shall I get it? Tell me or I’ll get it. Where is he? I’m going to get it. Where is he? I’ll squeeze it out of you, you rubber duck!”

  “I swear, I swear …”

  “I will! I’ll squeeze you till you squeak!” Goss began to push. Tooth roots creaked in Jason’s head, and he screamed again. The policeman in the corner exhaled shakily and did not look around. Goss put his other hand to Jason’s stomach.

  “I will push if you don’t tell me, because I want it back. Hurry, I said to Clarabelle and Petra that we’d be there in an hour, so tell me tell me.”

  Jason had nothing to tell him, so Goss kept pushing. The constable kept his eyes shut and gripped Subby’s hand and tried not to listen to Goss repeat and repeat his questions, heard the noises Jason made go from screams to short hard klaxon barks as much of aghastness as agony, liquid intrusion sounds and some retching animal wrongness and at the very last, nothing. After a long time a hff of effort and the dropping of liquid and the noise of something pushing through moistness. Clack clack. Something maraca-ed.

  “What’s that?” Goss said. Clack clack. “You really don’t know?” Clack. “Alright then, if you’re sure.” Dragging.

  “He doesn’t know.” Now Goss was up close to the policeman’s ear. “He told me. You can make him tell you too. Make him rattle his teeth. I’m much obliged for showing me where he was, you do a marvellous job, I’m ever so grateful. I remember when people used to care about the uniform, God love you, people had respect then.” The officer kept his eyes closed and did not breathe. “Give us Subby back then, you! Pop him up like a toaster!” Subby took his hand away. The man heard the door open and close. He stayed still for more than three minutes.

  He opened his eyes such a tiny bit. No one hurt him, so he opened them again. He turned around. No one stood in the room. Goss and Subby were gone. The man wailed to see blood on the floor and meatlike Jason at his feet. There was a hole in Jason’s sternum. His neck was grossly thickened, burst from inside, his mouth wide open and the roof of his mouth grooved where finger holes were pushed into it, his tongue punctured by a hole for a thumb. Wear him and he could be made to talk, clack clack.

  The last lingering of Jason’s knack went out, and recognition slipped from the room, and the officer went from screaming for someone he thought he knew to someone he realised he had never worked with, but who was still exactly as dead as he had thought.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  THERE WAS A CHANGE IN THE AIR, SOMEONE COMING INTO THE penumbra of the London Stone, with the stone in mind. London always felt like it was about to end, like the world was over. But now more than ever. No, really, the city was muttering. Honest. Saira could sniff an encroachment, even without Fitch grabbing her and whispering the fact in agitation.

  “Someone,” he kept saying.

  Saira thought up various possibilities as she readied to face whatever it was. But though she had hoped to see him again, she was utterly confounded to emerge from the Londonmancer back rooms into the shop that fronted and protected them to face a bleary, exhausted, pugnacious Dane Parnell.

  Billy stood behind him, phaser in his hand, Wati-filled doll in his pocket. Dane leaned against the doorway.

  “Jesus Christ London!” she said. “Dane! What the hell are you …? You got away, thank God, we didn’t know, we were—”

  “Saira,” he said. He sounded dead. He stared levelly.

  “Dane, what are you doing, you could be seen, we have to get you out of sight …”

  “Take me to the kraken.” Saira twitched and patted the air for him to quiet: most of her colleagues knew nothing. “Now,” he said.

  “Alright,” she said, “alright, alright alright. I have to get Fitch. What happened, Dane? I have to—”

  “Now. Now. Now. Now.”

  OF COURSE BILLY AND WATI, WHO HAD FELT BILLY’S EMERGENCE from that protected Nazi zone and gushed into the doll he carried, had clamoured at Dane in relief and tried to make him rest.

  “We have to get Jason too,” Billy said, and Dane nodded.

  “We will,” he said. At least the police, cruel as they might be, would not, he thought, kill his friend. Not yet. “He was trying to find me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We will. As soon as I’ve—” His words ended.

  “Do you want to tell me?” Billy said. “What happened?”

  And what kind of bleeding stupid question was that? he asked himself the moment it was out, into the quiet that followed. He said nothing as Dane said nothing and they only walked, and at last Dane said, “The Tattoo was there.”

  “You saw him?”

  “I couldn’t see nothing. But he was; I heard him. Talking through one of his things. He’s desperate. He’s under attack. Some of his business. From monsterherds. If he doesn’t know Grisamentum’s back he most certainly fucking suspects it by now.” His throat was untouched, but Dane croaked with the memory of damage, from the times it had been cut.

  “What did he want to know from you?”

  “Where the kraken is. Where you are.”

  “Did you—?”

  “No.” Dane said it with a kind of wonder. “No.”

  “I thought they’d …”

  “Yeah,” Dane said. “Yeah they did kill me,” he said. But he had come back. Even if it was by their malevolent interventions, Dane had come back. How many martyrs emerge from martyrdom’s other side?

  “He can feel something,” Dane said. “Like we all can.” He closed his eyes, he stretched out his arms. “He knows the angels are walking …”

>   “I have to tell you about that,” Billy said.

  “In a minute. It’s not just about wanting it for power anymore. He knows there’s an end and he knows it’s something to do with the kraken and he’s going insane because he thinks if he can get it maybe he can stop what’s happening. He can’t. He won’t. He’ll turn whatever’s happening into … something. We can stop whatever it is from happening.”

  “The Londonmancers don’t seem to have managed that,” Billy said.

  “No?” Dane turned to him, looking all new. “Maybe the universe has been waiting for me.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  So when they got to the Londonmancers, Dane said, simply, take me there now.

  “WE HAVE TO BE CAREFUL,” SAIRA SAID.

  “Now,” said Dane.

  “You can’t be seen with us,” she said, and Billy laid his hand on Dane’s arm. Easy. A little rushed preparation. Saira and Fitch went in Fitch’s little car, leaving Dane to steal another to follow. They gave him a knack-fucked satnav, a little handheld unit into which Dane plugged a cloth scrap with one drip of Saira’s blood—she had cut herself right there, in front of him, good faith.

  “Why would we try to get away from you?” she pleaded. “We need each other.”

  Billy and Dane swept rubbish in their wake. They looked disguised by night, by how unremarkable they were. That fooled Billy not at all, and he kept his phaser up. “It’s only a matter of time before we get found again,” he said. “Where the hell are Goss and Subby?”

  No one knew. They’d been and gone. Was that the end of it? No one believed that. But they were out of the city—that was obvious from the way everyone felt a little more oxygenated. We’re looking for something in far-off lands, is what Goss had supposedly said to someone they’d unaccountably left alive.