Time's Mistress

by Steven Savile

  The faces of the crowd were devoid of expression as the spectacle of the clockwork man had them rapt. Medici himself, in the centre of the first row, appeared to be in the grip of some holy ecstasy, the look of rapture transforming his ugly face with its bliss. But none of them could see what was truly happening. They were caught up in the duel, immune to the crackling bursts of energy that sparked and danced around every inch of the Medici chapel and out through the San Lorenzo church and into Florence itself. They couldn’t see the Archangel’s increasing desperation as its every blow was blocked and it was forced back and back, the clockwork man an undeniable force of nature.

  Lucifer forced Michael back into the chapel wall, directly beneath the statue of the crucified Christ.

  Nor could they see the malicious look of glee that had settled on the features of the Bright One.

  And then it was over.

  The Devil, Lucifer, Prince of Lies, Clockwork Man, slammed his steel fist through the spreading ribs of the naked angel and for a second held its beating heart in its mechanical hand, and then it squeezed.

  Fifteen thousand screams rent the inside of the San Lorenzo.

  The bell jar that held Michael’s angelus imploded, fine slivers of glass showering the faces of those closest to the stage. The bell jar that held da Vinci’s soul imploded. The threads that bound the fifteen thousand souls of the congregation to their mortal flesh, severed abruptly and amid the screams, the fear and sudden desolation, the Brightest One, Prince of Lies, watched the wraiths of light that should have been souls on their way to heaven writhe and twist in the air of the chapel, lost, as they were sucked away into the nothingness that was the absence of divinity.

  Stricken, da Vinci cradled the dead angel in his arms. “I didn’t understand … I didn’t understand,” he repeated, over and over. “I didn’t understand.”

  “Oh but you did,” Lucifer denied him. “You understood what it meant to banish Him. And still you did it. Where Astopel and Mammon, Azazel and Beelzebub failed, you, da Vinci, succeeded. With your help science killed God.” Lucifer laughed, a laugh that was echoed from the front of the madding crowd where Lorenzo Medici’s awestruck countenance was still being wracked by what could only be pleasure. His lips were moving, forming the words:

  “Your temple, Master.”

  And the rest, the rest of the fools Medici had dragged in to witness the second coming of Evil in the body of the clockwork man, they screamed on as they were stripped of eternal life as the clockwork took the black sword of God from the dead Archangel and scythed through the lost souls orbiting around his head. Lucifer drank it in, like benediction owed to him. Turning, he pushed da Vinci aside as though he were irrelevant, an irritant to be brushed away, and stopped, bending low over Michael’s corpse.

  “Farewell, brother,” the Prince of Lies said. “May He watch over your eternal soul … Oh no, forgive me. Thanks to you, there is no God. How ironic.” And so saying, he stood again and slammed the black sword into the angel’s chest. “So the Devil take your soul instead.” Michael’s body shuddered once, the black sword singing, the fragrance of vanilla suddenly suffusing the newly ordained church of Satan.

  Lucifer walked out of the San Lorenzo, alive with the infinite possibilities of the flesh, free to walk among his new flock as a man eternal, no meddling God to stand in his way.

  ***

  Loose Change

  The Wanderer

  The Wanderer listened to the busker as he played music of chance. He inhaled the melody note by note as they curled out from the busker’s battered old guitar, making patterns where there were none. In those patterns there was beauty.

  He closed his eyes, savouring the tune, his fingers playing over the curious golden timepiece on the collar of his patchwork coat. And for that moment, that single second of perfection, he wished with all his heart that it would not stop, that the notes would not fall away and that silence would never hold sway again, such was the power of the heartbreak and hope hidden within those random notes.

  The Wanderer reached into his pocket for a coin, felt along the edge of its milling and tossed it into the busker’s guitar case. The coin hit the rim, nicking its edge, rattled and fell, lost amid the silver and copper. Smiling, the Wanderer moved on. It was one random act of generosity in a nameless city but when the music of chance was involved anything and everything became possible.

  The Busker

  Si watched the clown of a man with a mess of blond curls and boyish charm walk away, waiting until he was out of earshot to stop playing. His fingers were raw and his stomach was killing him. All he wanted to do was eat. He gathered up the few coins he had earned with his music and stuffed them into his pocket. It was stubborn pride, he hated the idea of handouts. This way it felt like he was earning the pittance they dropped in his guitar case. With the guitar slung over his shoulder he walked down the street, following his nose and the seductive aromas of hot dogs and brine to the vendor’s stall on the corner, sandwiched between the red sign of an electronics store and the blue cross of a department store’s sale. “Give us a hot dog, mate.”

  “Everything on?” the hot dog vendor asked.

  “Yep, and stick a few extra onions on, would you?”

  Si rummaged around in his pocket for the coins to pay for his food, his finger catching on the rough edge of one. He took it out of his pocket and looked at it; a deep groove had been cut across the milling. It didn’t matter, money was money, he handed it over to the vendor along with a few others, and walked off down the street, munching.

  The Hot Dog Man

  Jay was having a miserable day.

  It was too cold. He had barely sold ten sausages all day. He needed to sell forty to even warrant setting up his stall. He rubbed his hands together briskly trying not to think about the cold.

  “Don’t make a scene, granddad,” a muffled voice rasped in his ear, up close. “Just give us your money and no one needs to get hurt.” Jay felt the sharp dig of a knife in his back. Frightened, he did as he was told. There wasn’t more than fifteen quid in loose change. It wasn’t worth getting killed over. He started to turn as he unfastened the pouch from around his waist but the knife in his back kept him facing forward. “Just pass it back, and don’t get any funny ideas, I’ll be watching you. Just count to one hundred. If you can do that you might just make it out of this alive.”

  He closed his eyes, and counted out one, two, three, on four he felt the thief pull the money pouch from his hand. He didn’t so much as flinch.

  The Thief

  Ellis emptied the coins into the deep pockets of his parka and dropped the pouch on the ground. He stuffed his hands in on top of the coins to stop them from rattling. The money felt good. Ellis thrust his fingers into the silver and copper, and in the process cut his finger on the rough edge of one of them. He winced. The hot dog man’s count had reached eleven before he stepped back and slipped into the mill of shoppers and effectively disappeared.

  Ellis was bored so halfway down the street he ducked into the penny arcade and fed the coin that had cut him into the Space Invaders. Ellis was good, a real wizard when it came to vapourising pixels. He set the high score before he left, allowing the guy who ran the place to empty the machine. He had played for forty-five minutes on that one coin.

  The Coin Collector

  Jervis McCreedy watched the young scally leave, “The kids today,” he said to no one in particular as he set his key into the machine, with a pull and a twist a river of silver came tumbling out into his small Hessian sack.

  He sat in his cramped booth amid the stink of sweaty kids and danger pheromones until closing time, watching their antics on the silent security screens. They were all the same, like pack animals. Jervis tried to tell himself the kids who hung around the penny arcade feeding the slots and hammering out high scores weren’t normal kids but he knew he was kidding himself, thinking of a better time that never was, when kids were sweet and sugar and all those things little gir
ls were supposed to be made of but even the nursery rhymes knew they were snails and puppy dog’s tails really. Still, he had a while before he had to worry about that. Tonight, it was all about flowers and letting love decide.

  He shut up shop, whistling another refrain from the music of chance, random notes spilling from his lips as he walked toward the florist’s kiosk across the street from the penny arcade.

  “So tonight’s the night?” the pretty young thing behind the glass asked. She knew his story. Everyone around here did. Jervis McCreedy was in love, and tonight, with a white orchid and puppy dog eyes he would propose. She had the orchid wrapped and waiting for him. He handed her notes to pay for it, and then as an afterthought dropped a handful of coins into the small tin pot she had left out for tips—not that people ever left tips for her. They tipped waiters and bar staff, taxi drivers and concierges. As a rule they did not tip florists.

  The chipped coin rattled in the tin pot.

  The Flower Girl

  It was moments like this, knowing that her flowers were going to play an important part in someone’s memories that would last forever that had convinced May to be a flower girl.

  She couldn’t help but smile as she watched the coin collector skip away down the street.

  He was her last customer for the night; she had stayed open just for him.

  Feeling good about herself, she rolled down the shutters and locked the screens in place. She was halfway out the door when she remembered she had no change for the night bus. With the till tallied and the cash locked away in the pouch to deposit in the bank’s night safe, she grabbed the coins out of the tin pot and locked the door.

  The bus was full of night people—these were the citizens of the city who didn’t come out during the day. They weren’t the tramps or the businessmen, they were young men on their way to clubs to dance to tunes where melody had been given up in favour of wild beats and passion, they were sallow skinned sweatshop workers, immigrants and the underclass of life the politicians never admitted to when they talked about the greatness of their city, their fancy words rusting and falling apart like so much else of the place.

  May paid, the chipped coin sticking in the ticket machine. The dead-eyed driver took it from her and swapped it for a token that fed the slot. She sat in one of the chairs with her back to the window. She had no interest in watching the night world roll by. As the bus pulled out she caught the eye of a young man on the opposite row of bench seats and felt her heart skip a beat as he smiled and moved across to join her. May’s breath caught in her throat as he smiled—he had one of those smiles, a dangerous one, the kind that made hearts skip beats—and asked her name.

  The Driver

  At the front of the bus the driver smiled. Dave Mason loved the night shift. It wasn’t dangerous like the evening run when the drinkers spilled out of the pubs. It was a haven for the misfits, and every now and then even misfits found love.

  He turned the radio up, not wanting to intrude on their getting to know one and other.

  Outside it started raining. He watched mile after mile of city streets slick beneath the wet wheels of the bus, the wipers cutting back and forth across the huge windscreen. People came and went, the flower girl and her new man left four stops from the hospital where they changed shifts. Dave smiled at her as she left. She smiled back and he could understand immediately what had drawn the young man across the seats to talk to her.

  Alone on the bus, he sang to himself, nonsense words that almost fit the tune of the day. He was still singing as he parked the vehicle in its bay and killed the engine.

  “Evening, Georgie,” Dave said to his replacement as she came in out of the rain. Her hair was plastered flat to her scalp. She looked anything but happy. He grinned, relinquishing his seat. As the night air hit him, Dave Mason had a single thought: he wanted a smoke. Eight hours sat cramped up on the bus left him with a fierce craving. He crossed the street, ducking into the foyer of the hospital and fed the cigarette machine with coins, catching his fingernail on the wounded one. The machine rejected it so he rooted around for another. He pulled the lever and the machine dispensed a packet of cigarettes. He peeled away the shrink wrap and tapped out a coffin nail. He was about to light it when a grinning man asked:

  “Excuse me, any chance I could bum one of those off you?”

  “No worries,” Dave said, tapping out a smoke. He lit it for the man, the pair of them huddling over the lighter like delighted conspirators hatching schemes.

  “Don’t suppose I can do you for change for the phone? I want to call my mother, let her know Becky’s had a little girl.”

  “Hey, fantastic! Congratulations,” Dave pulled a few coins from his pocket, including the one with the ruined milling, and handed them over to the proud father.

  The Proud Father

  Chris Welsh fed the coins one after the other into the pay phone and dialed home. The chipped coin stuck in the slot so he had to bang the side of the phone with his fist before it tumbled into the mysterious guts of call box. He listened to the ring signal cycle over and over and suddenly stop.

  “Hi mum, it’s me … yes, yes, she’s fine. They both are. Yes, a little girl. Couldn’t be happier. Yes, I know. Sleepless nights. Can’t wait …”

  The angry peep-peep-peep of the pips cut him off before he could go into weight and all those other things grandparents wanted to hear.

  “Love you. I will call you when I get back to the house. Love you!”

  And silence.

  He hung up, and went back to his wife and new baby girl in the maternity ward, all grins.

  The Service Engineer

  In the morning Vernon Little came round to empty the phone, scooping out the coins. The slot had been jammed with chewing gum during the night. He had to scrape it off with a knife. He couldn’t understand people; they had no respect for things, for property. If it wasn’t theirs they broke it. There was no social conscience these days. Vernon didn’t know whether to blame the kids, the parents or the politicians so he blamed all three and tried to forget about the fact that griping about it was a sure sign he was getting older. The chipped coin was stuck in the feeder, blocking the slot. He worked it free and stuck it in his pocket.

  Whistling he carried the day’s take to the van and poured it in a stream of silver into the money pouch on the passenger seat. He had no idea what the tune was, he’d had it stuck in his head all morning. Probably some piece of nonsense on the clock radio in those few minutes between sleep and waking.

  Vernon drove carefully, he always did, pulling up outside the small provincial office of the bank.

  He walked in two minutes before the ski-masked robbers with their sawn-off’s and guttural barks:

  “Everybody down, on the floor!”

  The Bank Robber

  “This is a robbery,” Andy Mills yelled. All he could think of was that movie, Pulp Fiction. How were you supposed to rob a bank without sounding like Pumpkin and Honey Bunny? “Nobody moves. Nobody says a thing. That way nobody gets hurt,” Andy waved his gun around, jamming it into the face of the guy in blue coveralls. His name badge said Vernon. “We don’t need any heroes, Billy. On the floor, now!”

  The Service Engineer

  Vernon knelt, heart hammering, his head filled with that damned stupid tune. He couldn’t get rid of it. He imagined being shot, dying, and being forced to spend eternity listening to it over and over and over.

  “All right, my friend here’s coming round with a bag, I want everyone to empty their pockets into it, watches, jewelry, wallets, loose change, the lot. Don’t hold back. We don’t want to hurt you, but we will.”

  When the bag man came to him, he reached into his pocket, felt his keys, a few crumpled notes, and the sharp nick of the damaged coin. He pulled them all out and dumped them into the plastic carrier bag.

  “And the rest of it,” the bag man barked, nodding toward his wedding ring.

  Vernon shook his head.

  “Don’t m
ake me hurt you, fool.”

  “It’s my wedding ring … it’s all I’ve got … she’s gone. Please.”

  “Stop bleating and take it off!”

  The butt of the sawn-off cracked off the side of his jaw as the bag man jabbed it in his face.

  “We’re done! Quick!” one of the ski-masks yelled, bolting back over the counter clutching a heavy sack of notes. Outside, sirens. One of the tellers had tripped the silent alarm. Inside, chaos.

  “Give me the ring!”

  The Bag Man

  Stevie Carr hit the ring bearer so hard across the side of the head the stubborn fool crumpled. He leaned down, prizing the gold off his fat finger and put it in the bag with the rest of the stuff. It was good haul. No, a great haul, what with the cash from the tellers, a few diamond rings and plenty of plastic would keep them happy for a few months.

  His blood was pumping. He was on fire!

  Stevie pushed through the glass doors and ran into the street. The sirens blared as police cars streamed around the corner. He looked left and right, clutching his precious bag, and without thinking started to run.

  Before he had taken five steps the plastic split, the bag ruptured haemorrhaging gold and silver, watches, coins, cuff links and notes all over the paving stones of the High Street.

  “Armed Police! Stop!”

  Stevie looked down at his feet, and saw a single silver coin with a deep cleft across its face and into its milling roll on its edge away toward the gutter.

  A clown of a man with a patchwork coat of mismatched colours and a mop of blonde curls stooped to pick up the coin.

  The Wanderer

  The Wanderer pocketed the damaged coin, feeling the nick in the milling.

  The young thief charged straight at him, intent to barrel through the Wanderer if he couldn’t get around him.

  The street was chaos, police shouting, a woman screaming, the alarms in full hullabaloo now. He side-stepped the thug a whisker before collision, but left his leg trailing. There was no way the young thief could get his feet out of the way in time, and with his hands still full with the ripped plastic bag, he went sprawling across the paving stones.