Tourmaline

by James Brogden

  ‘No!’ She shook him off, calculating how far it was to the door of the Grange and whether or not she’d be able to call for help.

  ‘Not a clever idea,’ he advised, as if he could read her thoughts, and it was quite likely he could – or at least, her emotions. ‘Not clever at all. Even if you were quick enough, and I’m fairly sure you’re not, you know I’d have to kill everybody in there just for having seen me, don’t you? As it is…’ he shrugged and allowed the yard gate to swing open slightly so that she could glimpse the abattoir beyond, ‘…there’s already been a bit of collateral damage. I get the feeling they’re going to be a bit short-staffed tonight.’

  ‘Jesus,’ she whispered. ‘What have you done?’

  She had no choice. All her plans, her careful arrangements to remove any trace of Sophie – all of it had been a waste of time, and everything she’d built up was forfeit. Her mind was racing for anything she could say or use to buy a little time to think. Running was no good; he was bound to be faster and stronger. Calling for help would simply endanger innocent people. Her one consolation was that since Steve had left, there was less danger of dragging him deeper into this. Her mind twittered and flapped like a crippled bird.

  Dazed, she let him lead her to a large car parked in a side street. He opened the rear door and she got in, then recoiled in terror and tried to scramble back out again when she found herself sitting next to a solemn-faced child covered in gore.

  ‘Oh my God!’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ he grimaced. ‘I didn’t really think that one through. Maddox’s gonna kill me.’

  She recoiled, trying to push past him and away.

  ‘Oy, we’ll have less of that, thank you very much,’ he said and shoved her back in, locking the door. She pressed herself as far back against it as she could, away from the monstrosity which grinned at her and kicked its shoes against the seat in front. The interior of the car was smeared with blood from where it had been climbing around. Degan got in the driver’s seat and tossed the hradix a mint, which it snapped expertly out of mid-air and crunched, making happy little hooting noises. ‘Try not to antagonise it,’ he suggested. ‘I don’t fancy having to hose what’s left of you off the seats.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Easily bored,’ he replied, and started the engine. ‘So I hope you know some nursery songs, because you’re on child-minding duty, sweetie.’

  She stared at it, appalled. ‘How could you people do that to a child?’

  ‘And we can have a bit less of that, too,’ he warned. ‘Last thing I want is you being lippy all the bloody way home.’

  ‘If we’re not going back to the hospital, then where are you taking me? Who are you?’

  ‘I’m the man they send to pick up the confused, the frightened and the lost. When a Passenger appears, there’s usually hell to pay, especially if it’s an animal like that there.’ The hradix, sensing that it was being spoken about, barked. He tossed it another mint. ‘I take them somewhere safe and cosy, where they can’t hurt anybody, while we figure out who or what they are and whether or not they can be put to any use.’

  ‘But I’m not a Passenger!’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ he conceded. ‘But you have been on the Hegemony’s watch-list all the same – or at least you were until you decided to go a-wandering. Somebody somewhere has been very interested in what you might be carrying. Plus, you’re not exactly the same girl you were when the doctors took you away in the little van with the square wheels, are you, eh? Vanessa, is it? And now you start making waves, so they send little old me to bring you in and find out what’s what. Now, do be a love and shut the fuck up. I’m trying to drive.’

  As they drove through the city centre, she wondered how they could pass so many other cars without a single person noticing the blood-covered child bouncing up and down on the seat next to her. Even if they did, what was it that she hoped they would do? Flash their lights? Call the police and have helicopters come flying to the rescue? Nothing like that was going to happen. She watched normality slipping past on either side: first the highrises and dual-carriageways, then the shops, houses, and schools of the suburbs. Soon they would be on the motorway and all of that would be gone forever, along with Steve and Jackie and Barry and every other normal human being she’d come to cherish in the last year and a half of her failed experiment at being real. Not even the Goddess could protect her now.

  At that, an awful idea occurred to her, something which might just save her, but at a cost she dreaded to contemplate. But in the end, what choice did she have?

  ‘It’s not just me, you know,’ she said. ‘I mean, I’m not the only one. There’s my ex-boyfriend too. He’s a Passenger, just like you.’

  Degan sighed and flicked a glance at her in the rear-view mirror, and the hradix let out a feral growl of such depth and ferocity that it shocked her into silence.

  ‘What did I say was the last thing I wanted?’ Degan demanded. ‘Go on, what was it?’

  ‘Me being lippy,’ she replied, very quietly.

  ‘Abso-fucking-lutely,’ he muttered and focussed ahead once more.

  The city continued to slip by. They passed through a no-man’s land of budget hotels and motorway slip-roads and then they were on the M5 heading south, and with each passing mile, her heart sank lower.

  ‘Why?’ he said suddenly, obviously having mulled this over. ‘Why would you volunteer that? About your ex?’

  Eager to seize on this, but not to appear so, she manufactured a bitter little laugh. ‘Because then you can take us both, and when we get where we’re going, and you’re the golden boy, I’ll have someone who owes me one.’

  ‘What makes you think I’ll owe you anything?’

  ‘I’ve got nothing to lose, have I? You can easily check up on him; there’s no point me lying about it. And besides, the bastard walked out on me, so the hell with him.’

  ‘Christ, remind me never to get on your wrong side.’

  He hated to admit it, but she made sense. The readings from the Hegemony’s buoys had pointed unarguably to her address, but evidence of her relationship with McBride was solid, and it was only an assumption that she was their solitary source. As she said, it was easily verifiable. If she was telling the truth, she’d have earned him some brownie points with Maddox (which might make up for the mess he’d made of the car, if nothing else), and he might very well decide to owe her in return. If she was lying – well then, he’d make sure he had a bit of fun with her on the way home. Not enough to damage her for the Hegemony’s purposes, of course. Just enough to teach her to never fuck with him again.

  ‘Okay. I’ll play. Where can we find this scoundrel of an ex-boyfriend?’

  ‘He works in a gallery,’ she replied and gave him directions.

  4

  On the short walk from the University’s south car park to the Barber Institute, she prayed that the pair of them looked so utterly nondescript that nobody spared them a second glance. There was no reason that they should, but equally there was no way of telling what might be leaking through them from Tourmaline, which might cause people to look again at the shaven-headed man and the frightened-looking woman at his side. It was for much the same reason that Degan had ordered the hradix to sit and stay in the car. There was certainly no point in trying to attract help from any passers-by; it would only get them killed. To all intents and purposes, Vessa and Degan were just another student couple.

  They were also ignored by the gallery staff at the little shop kiosk just inside the main door, and the coffee-drinking customers at the tables outside the concert hall, who chatted and laughed as if death were not walking right through them. It amazed her.

  They climbed the long sweep of the curving marble staircase which switch-backed to the upper-floor galleries, with Vessa willing Steve not to be there, to be on a break, having a day off, even lying in hospital –
anything but here, where he might be tempted into some act of suicidal heroics. Things had finished badly between them, sure, but despite what she’d said to Degan in the car, she still didn’t want him to get hurt.

  The security station was at the top of the stairs. A man she didn’t recognise was sitting at it. Unthinking, she expelled a huge sigh of relief.

  ‘What was that for?’ Degan whispered, immediately suspicious.

  ‘What do you think?’ she hissed back. ‘I’m terrified that you’re going to hurt someone.’

  He linked his arm with hers and fixed a smile on his face. ‘Just so we’re clear on this? If you try anything silly, I’ll feed you your own kidneys. Okay, sweetie? So where’s your ex, then?’

  ‘If he’s not downstairs, he must be up here somewhere.’

  The corridors of the Barber’s upper gallery formed a square, arranged around the two-storey height of the concert-hall, each with a different colour scheme. Straight ahead from the top of the stairs and the guard’s station ran the Blue Gallery (art 1800 to 1900), which turned right into Beige, then Red, Green, and back to the stairs. Directly ahead of them, where Blue met Beige, hung She Shall Be Called Woman in glorious full view of everybody who arrived on the upper floor. At the diagonally opposite corner from the stairs, where Beige met Red, was a second security station – just a chair where another guard could sit and watch the two corridors that the guard by the stairs couldn’t see. It also meant that Vessa wouldn’t be able to see who was sitting there until she and Degan had got all the way to the painting. She led the way forward, just as she’d led Steve’s friend Caffrey.

  Sophie? she called.

  There was no response. They were halfway along the corridor.

  Please, I’m sorry. I know I’ve been a selfish bitch, but I need your help. This man, he’s going to take us back to the white coats and the drugs, and I don’t think I can take that again. Please, you have to answer me.

  Still nothing. They were within a few yards of the Goddess, and the Beige Gallery was opening up on her right. Her heart stopped.

  Sitting on that chair at the far end, doing his crossword, was Steve. He was frowning at the paper; he hadn’t seen her.

  Don’t look up. Please, don’t look up. Sophie, where are you?

  She was almost within touching distance of the painting now. She had to try to concentrate – no, not concentrate, the very opposite. She had to disconnect herself from the world, reach inwards to the place where Sophie hid and make contact just like when she’d panicked and pushed Neil Caffrey into Tourmaline. But it was impossible to do either when Steve was at the other end of the next corridor and any second he might look up, because then she’d have killed him.

  But Degan had already seen, recognising McBride from the picture in her file. ‘So that’s your chap, then, is it?’

  Steve looked up at this loud voice in the otherwise hushed silence of the gallery, and frowned in surprise. ‘Vessa?’ he called ‘What are you doing here? Who’s this?’

  ‘Mr McBride, so pleased to meet you at last!’ grinned Degan, advancing with his hand outstretched for shaking. ‘My sister and I are just having a little family art appreciation time.’

  Steve got up, tossed the paper to the floor, and met him halfway. He looked straight past Degan at Vessa. There was only one other time he’d seen her looking this pale and stricken. Her fingertips were trembling inches away from the painting’s surface. ‘Is this true? He’s your brother?’ Suspicion darkened his eyes. ‘Hey, is this bloke bothering you?’

  ‘Bothering,’ mused Degan, and grasped McBride’s hand, sensing instantly that he was not a Passenger. McBride didn’t have about him that peculiar sense of brimming that a Passenger carried, as if the life-force of the person from Tourmaline – or something about that world itself – was spilling out and over into this reality. ‘Tell you about bothering, my man. Piss off out of here right now, or I’ll bother your head off your fucking shoulders.’ He snatched his hand away and spun back on Vessa. ‘And you! What the fuck are you…?’ but stopped, open-mouthed.

  She Shall Be Called Woman was not just moving – it had opened.

  The goddess herself had disappeared, and in her absence the hazy golden clouds through which she had been rising shifted and billowed, shot through with the rays of a shimmering, half-hidden sun. The plants and flowers which had wreathed her thighs now swayed in an unfelt wind, even though he could smell the air of that place – warm and humid, like a greenhouse or an aquarium.

  Steve recognised it from weeks ago, when Caffrey had gone missing. It was the smell of seawater. And suddenly he realised what he was looking at. He wasn’t looking at the sky at all, and Eve hadn’t been flying to heaven; she’d been underwater, rising into existence, and he was there too, gazing up through fronds of seaweed at sunlight refracting through the surface. The impression was so vivid that he could actually feel it – the soothing lull of the enclosing waters, the drifting caress of the weed, and he thought: wouldn’t it be fine to break the surface and see what colour the sky was in that place? He could search for the missing goddess and bring her back. All he had to do was step forward and kick upwards.

  Degan also recognised it: it was the shifting turquoise water of home, and the sight of it filled him with a nauseating mixture of homesickness and terror. ‘No!’ he whispered.

  Then Vessa grabbed him and shoved him as hard as she could at it.

  The part of him that was a deck-swabbing grunt in the Elbaite navy fell through and was claimed by the submarine depths, while the part of him that was Roger Simkin bounced off the painting’s surface and fell senseless to the floor. The image rippled, wavered, broke up and reconstituted itself into the image of Eve ascendant, as if nothing had ever happened, and all that was left was the smell of brine and a man lying drenched and unconscious on the gallery floor.

  Steve was brought back to his senses by the sight of Vessa, who had crouched and was searching through the man’s pockets. ‘Bingo!’ she grinned, scooping up his car-keys. Then she grabbed Steve by the wrist with surprising strength and tried to drag him after her back down the gallery.

  After a few unthinking steps he stopped and refused to budge. ‘No, stop. What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  Before she could reply, the guard from the top of the stairs arrived at a run, wide-eyed and clutching a squawking walkie-talkie. ‘What happened?’

  ‘That nutter attacked me,’ said Steve, indicating the unconscious man. ‘Then he collapsed. Don’t ask me, I never even touched him. His friend here,’ he indicated Vessa, ‘had her hands all over the Watts.’

  ‘Steve…’ she started, but he ignored her.

  ‘Sort this one out for medical attention,’ he told his colleague. ‘I’ll get her down to the office and we’ll see about calling the police.’

  ‘Right you are.’

  ‘Steve, let me explain…’

  He took her by the elbow and marched her towards the stairs, shaking his head in absolute denial. ‘No. No way. You’re not dragging me any further into this – whatever it is.’ It was the taxi all over again, but this time he wasn’t getting in.

  For her part, Vessa allowed herself to be marched, since he was taking her in the direction she wanted to go anyway. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘What I should have done the first time you committed criminal damage against a public work of art. I’m calling the police.’

  ‘Do you mean the time I sent your friend Neil into the Flats, or the time after that?’ she asked calmly.

  ‘Great,’ he replied, still walking. ‘You can tell them all about that, too. Add assault and kidnapping to the list.’

  She laughed. ‘Do you know how melodramatic you sound?’

  ‘Because you, of course, do not in the least sound completely barking mad,’ he shot back.

  ‘Help me,’ she said, ‘and
I’ll tell you where Neil has gone. I’ll even see if I can get him back for you.’

  ‘You’ll tell the police, I’m pretty bloody sure of that.’

  ‘Of course I will, but they’ll never believe me. You know that. You’ve seen enough to understand that there is something going on here which people like the police will never believe, even assuming I get anywhere near talking to them. The moment you hand me over, the Hegemony will get hold of me again, and that is precisely why I have no intention whatsoever of allowing you to hand me over.’ She pulled free from his grip easily and stood facing him. ‘Don’t be under any illusions Steve; I’m not begging for anything here. I’m offering you a deal. Help me, drive for me, and I’ll help you get your friend back.’

  ‘Sorry, Vessa, it doesn’t work that way.’ He tried to catch hold of her again, and she slapped his hand aside. She looked closely at him, frowning, as if seeing something for the first time.

  ‘Wow,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re really going to do this, aren’t you?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘This. You’re so pissed off because I lied to you that you’re going to willingly ignore everything that you’ve seen, aren’t you? You’ve spoken to Sophie, you’ve seen a painting come to life – my God, you’ve even seen Tourmaline. I know you have. But your poor precious pride has been wounded, hasn’t it? And you can’t possibly let that go, so it’s all got to be ignored. I might say that you’re a coward and leave it at that, except you obviously haven’t given any thought to what’s going to happen to Jackie and her boys after this, which makes you a selfish prick into the bargain.’

  ‘Jackie? She’s got nothing to do with any of this. Are you threatening…?’

  ‘No, I’m not threatening. Don’t be so bloody dense. But if the Hegemony can’t find me, they’ll work down the food chain, won’t they?’

  ‘I don’t think I believe in this Hegemony you keep going on about. You’re just being paranoid.’