Mr. Streater’s trousers were concertinaed round his ankles and he was enthusiastically engaged in shoving a hypodermic needle deep into a vein somewhere in the region of his left thigh.
Arthur double-taked into the corridor, making certain that no one else had seen. “What are you doing?”
“Gets tricky after a while,” Streater drawled, “finding a new vein.”
“I can imagine.”
“Just a little pick-me-up after lunch.” The blond man stowed the hypodermic in one of his pockets and Arthur felt a pulsation of disgust.
“I’ve just bolted down my food,” the prince said softly. “I’ve been rude to my best friend and I’ve refused to speak to my wife. Why the devil can’t I stay away from you?”
“Gotta be my magnetic personality.” Like a used car salesman drawing a customer’s attention to the pride and joy of the forecourt, Streater gestured toward a china teapot on the table. “Up for a cup of tea?”
At the mention of tea, the prince seemed enthused. “Do you know, I think I am.”
“What were you saying about your wife?” the blond man asked as he poured the heir his first cup of the day.
Arthur seized it hungrily. “She says she needs to talk to me.”
“That right?” Streater laughed. “She wants you to jump and you ask how high? Is that how it goes with you?”
“No,” Arthur protested. “That is, I-”
Streater put his hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “Word to the wise, mate. Don’t put up with any backchat. Give birds an inch, they grab a bloody mile.”
Arthur seemed barely to have registered what Streater had said. He held out his cup, already drained. “Listen here. Is there any chance of a drop more?”
Streater smiled and filled the cup again. “We should press on. Your old mum’s keen to finish your education.”
“Why?”
Streater gave a savage smile and clapped his hands together, at which the thin, wintry sunlight faded away as though a cloud-bank had rolled in front of the sun. As the prince sat riveted, clasping his cup of tea, a figure began to materialize at the corner of the room, the strange shade of Windsor’s great-great-great-grandmother. Beside her — the silhouette of Wholeworm, Quillinane and Killbreath.
“Thank you for coming, gentlemen,” said the Queen.
The lawyers nodded as one.
“We regret the unpleasantness with Mr. Dedlock on the last occasion we met.”
“Not at all, ma’am,” said the Englishman. “I’m sure that Mr. Dedlock will one day come to see the light.”
“Oh, I doubt that very much, Mr. Wholeworm. I think we’re in for a long and bloody struggle. Whether Mr. Dedlock approves of it or not, Leviathan is here to stay. But the truth can be entrusted only to a few. Only the most worthy of my successors will be told — and only then when the time is right.”
“Amen,” chorused the lawyers.
“We are the inner circle. We know the truth. Leviathan will take the city only when it is ripe.”
“How will we know, ma’am?” the Irishman asked. “How will we know when London is ripe?”
“I am not certain, Mr. Quillinane. As I understand it, there are certain atmospheric conditions which must be met before the city is acceptable. Certain questions, too, of population. But I know that I shall not be here to see it.”
Various obsequious protestations at this.
“No need for flattery, gentlemen. I shall be long dead when Leviathan comes again. But the firm of Wholeworm, Quillinane and Killbreath… now they shall not.”
“Ma’am?” the Scotsman asked. “What dae ye mean?”
“Leviathan has blessed you all. Your service to the crown will continue for far longer than you could ever have dreamed. You are to be his eyes and ears on earth. You will not taste death, gentlemen, until the very end.”
Wholeworm’s face had turned white. “Ma’am? What are you suggesting?”
“You shall be eternal lawyers, in the service of Leviathan far beyond the natural span of your lives.”
They stared at her, struck dumb with horror.
“Now, now, gentlemen. Please, do not thank me. You know how easily I blush.”
“Your Majesty-” Quillinane stepped forward, hoarse voiced and shaking. “Please-”
“No, Mr. Quillinane. That’s quite enough. I envy you. You shall be here to see Leviathan in his full glory. You will be here to bear witness as he blesses the people of this city.”
Streater clapped his hands and there was light again.
Arthur realized that his body was damp with sweat. “It’s coming, isn’t it? That’s why you’re showing me this. The city is ripe. Leviathan is coming soon.”
Streater cocked his head with a sort of nod. “Leviathan’s already here, chief. It came to the city in 1967.”
“What? How is it possible?”
“It was summoned here but some clever bastard trapped it.”
“Trapped it? What do you mean — trapped it?”
“It was chained by the Directorate. By one of Dedlock’s men.”
“Good God. Is the man dead now?”
“As good as.” Streater smirked. “Leviathan’s here, chief. Close by. In the city somewhere, imprisoned. But don’t stress. It’s all in hand. We’re pretty confident that his rescue’s only a matter of days away.”
“This can’t be right. This feels so wrong. Good God, Streater — my own family-”
“Relax,” Streater purred. “Chill out.”
“Why did Mother want you to tell me all this?”
“She wants you to be ready, chief. For Leviathan. For your ascension to the throne. And before that, for something she wants you to do. A necessary chore.”
The prince was still sweating and had begun to shiver and tremble like a street-corner alcoholic. “I’m gasping for a drink. Is there any more tea? Might I have some more tea before we finish?”
The prince didn’t spot it but a tiny smile of triumph flickered on Streater’s lips. “Why not?” he cooed. “A little drop can’t hurt.”
Chapter 16
Miss Morning lived with a monster.
Even so, it was immediately clear that she was also lonely. Her house, a large four-bedroomed place in the snooty precincts of South Kensington, whilst grimily bohemian, lacked the imprint of any life but hers. Her fridge, when I caught a glimpse of its contents, was stockpiled with ready meals, instant snacks and suppers for one.
More than this, I scarcely recognized her when she came to the door, dressed in a flowing gray smock, her hair worn long and pre-Raphaelite around her shoulders, her hands covered in what looked like clay.
Once I had stepped inside and we were walking through to the heart of her home, I blurted out: “You seem different.”
Her only answer was a smile, like a mother to a son who’s just worked out the truth about Father Christmas. We walked down a chilly hallway, through her sparse kitchen and into a large light-filled extension which jutted from the rear of the building. Formed entirely of glass, it felt pleasantly warm, like a giant greenhouse or the tropical rooms at Kew — comforting and almost homely, or at least it seemed so until I saw the beast.
The room was filled with clay sculptures, each depicting the individual body parts of some bizarre, impossible monster. Here were tendrils and tentacles and black-skinned teeth, there were talons and claws and, over by the window, a gigantic eye, milk-white and scored as though by chisel marks.
I murmured: “I never knew you were an artist.”
“I dabble. It’s a hobby I discovered after I left the service.” She asked the minefield question: “What do you think?”
“It’s weird,” I said, trying to be tactful. “There’s a lot of black. A lot of tentacles.”
She nodded. “I only seem able to approach my subject in parts.”
“Is it some sort of allegory? Something modern and difficult?”
“On the contrary, Henry. This is life drawing.”
Be
fore I could ask more, something small, gray and very familiar padded into the studio, looked over at me and mewed.
“Hello there,” I said, feeling absurdly disappointed not to get a reply. I made that strange high-pitched kissing sound that everyone seems to make around cats, at which the animal trotted meekly over and allowed me to stroke the underside of his chin.
“He recognizes you,” Miss Morning said.
I agreed, and I have to admit that my spirits lifted, just a tiny bit, at the knowledge of it. “It’s astonishing he found you,” I said.
“You know what he is, don’t you?”
I was tickling the animal’s belly by now, making it squirm and purr with pleasure.
“The cat is your grandfather’s agent in the waking world. He is the old man’s familiar.”
Gingerly, I removed my hand from the cat’s tummy. “What do you mean?”
“It’s the old man’s servant, an avatar, an extension of his self. A distillation of sheer willpower cloaked in flesh, fur and whiskers. He sees through its eyes and it has all his guile, all his wisdom. Your grandfather chose its form but I may also be able to change its shape.”
I looked down doubtfully at the animal. “Alternatively, it might just be my granddad’s cat.”
“Is there something you wanted to tell me?” Miss Morning asked pleasantly. “You sounded agitated on the phone.”
Looking warily back at the feline, I dropped my voice almost to a whisper. “Are you sure it’s safe to talk?”
“I sweep this place twice a day for bugs. We’re as secure here as Dedlock in the Eye. Probably safer.”
I took a breath, before the truth came out in a torrent. “The Directorate is going to let the Prefects lead us to Estella. And it’s going to happen soon.”
The old lady gazed at me gravely and murmured: “There’s no fool like an old fool. By which yardstick, that old man’s a moron. But why have you come to me with this?”
“I need to know what happened with Estella.”
Miss Morning tottered toward a colossal fang and rested on it for support as she released a long, rattling sigh. “You’d better sit down,” she said at last.
I lowered myself onto a tiny wooden chair which looked as though it had been stolen from a classroom.
“Your grandfather loved Estella,” Miss Morning began. “Adored her. He was the only one who loved her for who she was and not simply for the contours of her figure. But he let it happen to her just the same.”
I shuffled uncomfortably in my chair.
“At the end of the sixties, we were losing the war badly. An entire division had just been wiped out on field exercises in the Malvern Hills. Leviathan was coming and we had no means of stopping it. Your grandfather grew desperate. He started to consider the most extreme solutions. Even this… Against all advice and his own better judgment, on April fourth, 1967, he summoned the Prefects. He told them everything. Begged for their help. They thought for a while — Hawker scratching his head, Boon sucking on a sherbet lemon — before they told him how to stop the beast. All they wanted in return, the only thing they asked for… Well, I’m sure they haven’t lost any time in telling you that.”
My stomach turned over and I thought of my father’s last, frantic moments of life, gasping for breath on the hard shoulder of a motorway.
“In exchange, the Prefects told your grandfather about the Process.”
“The Process?”
“You’ve heard the phrase before?”
“From the Prefects, yes. And it was in Granddad’s journal. Why? What is it?”
“The Process is high science and low magic. It bends time and compresses matter.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Your mouth is open and there are words coming out but I don’t know what any of them mean.”
Miss Morning sighed. “The Process transforms a person into a vessel. It turns them into a living prison, a jail to hold the monster. We needed a volunteer. Someone strong. Someone physically tough. They would require certain preparations… incisions to the brain… Then we were to take them to a place of power.”
“What do you mean? A place of power?”
“An old site. Somewhere charged up with psychic energy. Marked out with certain signs and sigils.”
“And then what?”
“We had to make them bleed, Henry. We had to slash their wrists and let the life dribble out of them. Until they were empty. Until they were hollowed out.”
“That’s murder.”
“No. Not quite murder. That was the art of it.”
“And you went along with this?”
“We had no choice. Believe me. Can you guess who they chose as the vessel?”
The answer was grotesquely obvious. “Estella.”
Miss Morning gave a bleak twitch of her shoulders. “Dedlock insisted on her. So we went through with it. The whole thing.”
“Where did it happen?” I asked.
“You don’t need to know about that. I doubt you’d like the answer.” She looked at me as though I was expected to figure something out, to make some leap of logic here. I probably just looked blank.
Miss Morning went on. “It was a night of dark miracles. When we cut that woman’s wrists they healed right back up again.”
“Impossible, naturally.”
“Naturally. But we saw it happen. Your grandfather and I were both there. Poor Estella — not quite human any more. A medieval mind would say that what we did was cut out that woman’s soul. Leviathan came to earth and we bound it in a jail of flesh and bone. Like a genie in a bottle. Like a spider in a jar.” She seemed to shrink back at the memory. “We made a prison cell from a human being. I don’t expect that was right of us. But there it is. Estella was an empty shell of a woman once we were done. The strain of keeping Leviathan inside her had shut down most of her motor functions. She became sluggish, glazed, absent. Two days later, I was babysitting out safe house at Mornington Crescent when the Prefects strolled through the door and announced that they wanted to turn themselves in.”
“Why?”
“They said their consciences had too much to bear. They told me that they were ready to give themselves up.”
“You didn’t believe them?”
“Of course not. They’re playing some larger game. That chalk circle no more holds them than a shopping bag would restrain an ocelot.”
I frowned slightly at the metaphor.”
“Your granddad quit the service and took Estella with him. He went home to your grandmother and a couple of days later, Estella disappeared. He would never tell us where he hid her, even under the severest provocation. The Directorate has men who specialize in persuasion but your grandfather never spoke about it. Not once. So you see why they need to find Estella so badly. She’s not the key to the war. She is the war.”
Miss Morning and I stared uneasily at one another across the curve of a clay tumor.
M phone shivered in my pocket. “Excuse me,” I said as I retrieved it, terrified at what news it might bring.
It was Mr. Dedlock. Our conversation was brief and almost entirely one-sided.
“What did he say?” the old lady asked as soon as I was done. “Spit it out.”
“Dedlock has agreed to their terms.” My voice was trembling despite my attempts at moderation. “The Prefects will be moved tomorrow.”
Miss Morning looked at me sadly and turned away. “Then I think it’s time you went home and enjoyed what little time you have left, because, believe me, everything’s about got to hell.” I got the impression that, in Miss Morning’s world, this constituted fruity language indeed, reserved for use only in the very teeth of catastrophe.
I was rummaging through my jacket pockets, trying to locate my key, when the door to our little flat in Tooting Bec was shoved open and Abbey stood before me in her dressing gown, her hair still damp from the shower, her pinkish face scrubbed clean of cosmetics, smelling all over of carame
l-scented moisturizer.
“I was worried.”
“I’m fine.” I walked inside, shut the door, locked it, drew across the chain. “Had to work late, that’s all.” I shrugged off my coat and hung it on the hook.
“Are you cross with me?”
“Why would I be cross with you?” I glimpsed bare flesh beneath the dressing gown. She seemed fragile, doll-like, and I had never before felt a more irresistible compulsion to embrace her.
“I just thought that after what happened last night…” She was chewing on her lower lip. “After what didn’t happen…”
I took her in my arms, clasped her close and kissed her on the lips, not caring about the consequences, not worrying for once if I might make a prat of myself.
“Henry?” she asked tremblingly once our lips had finally parted and my hand had begun to slip unthinkingly downward.
Silently, I led her to my bedroom, where, as gently as I could, I slipped away that gown, brushed my fingers across her breasts, dropped to my knees and began to kiss every part of her.
Lying in warm-skinned intimacy, we had just begun to drift into a doze when the grouchy buzz of the bell wrenched us back into the real world. Abbey snuffed her disapproval but I disentangled myself, pulled on T-shirt and boxers, and plodded to the door, acutely aware than the evening’s pleasures were already evaporating into history. The bell jangled again and as I reached for the handle, I wondered whether an unexpected ring at the door after midnight had ever, in the whole history of the world, been a herald of good news.
It was Jasper, giddily energetic, like a child high on tartrazine.
“I think it’s a mistake,” he said, stepping into my home uninvited.
I rubbed at my eyes. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.:
“You haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?”
“The Prefects are being moved tonight.”
“That can’t be right. Mr. Dedlock was quite specific.”
“Misdirection. Either that or he’s changed his mind. You’d better get your clothes on.” Jasper was ignoring me. Abbey had emerged from the bedroom and stood blinking in the corridor’s electric light, her modesty shielded only by a set of artfully positioned towels.
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