by Clive Barker
‘Will you keep your damn silence?’ she said. This is bloody hard work.’
‘It’s not wise to use the Giddies,’ he said. They’re unreliable.’
‘You want to take over?’ she challenged him.
‘You know I’ve got no skill with that.’
‘Then bite your tongue,’ she snapped. ‘And leave me to it, will you? Go on!’ She got to her feet and pushed him towards the door. ‘Go on. Get out of here. All of you.’
They withdrew to the landing, where Freddy continued to complain. ‘The woman’s lazy,’ he said. ‘Lilia didn’t need the fruit.’
‘Lilia was special,’ said Nimrod, sitting at the top of the stairs, still wrapped in his tattered shirt. ‘Let her do it her way, will you? She’s not stupid.’
Freddy sought solace with Cal. ‘I don’t belong to these people.’ he protested. ‘It’s all a terrible error. I’m not a thief.’
‘What is your profession then?’
‘I’m a barber. And you?’
‘I work in an insurance company.’ It seemed odd to think of that; of his desk, the claim forms piling up in the tray; of the doodles he’d left on the blotting paper. It was another world.
The bedroom door opened. Apolline was standing there, with one of the pages from the atlas in her hand.
‘Well?’ said Freddy.
She handed the page to Cal.
‘I’ve found it.’ she said.
2
The trail of echoes led them across the Mersey, through Birkenhead, and over Irby Hill, to the vicinity of Thurstaston Common. Cal knew the area not at all, and was surprised to find such rural territory within a hop, skip and a jump of the city.
They circled the area, Apolline in the passenger seat, eyes closed, until she announced:
‘It’s here. Stop here.’
Cal drew up. The large house they had arrived outside was in darkness, although there were several impressive vehicles in the driveway. They vacated the car, climbed the wall, and approached.
‘This is it,’ Apolline announced. ‘I can practically smell the Weave.’
Cal and Freddy made two complete circuits of the building, looking for an entrance that wasn’t locked, and on the second trip found a window which, while too small for an adult, offered easy access to Nimrod.
‘Softly, softly does it,’ Cal counselled, as he hoisted Nimrod through. ‘We’ll wait by the front door.’
‘What are our tactics?’ Cammell enquired.
‘We get in. We take the carpet. We bugger off again,’ said Cal.
There was a muffled thump as Nimrod leapt or tumbled from the sill on the other side. They waited a moment. There was no further sound, so they returned to the front of the house, and waited in the darkness. A minute passed; and another, and yet another. Finally, the door opened, and Nimrod was standing there, beaming.
‘Lost my way,’ he whispered.
They slipped inside. Both lower and upper floors were unlit, but there was nothing restful about the darkness. The air was agitated, as if the dust couldn’t quite bear to settle.
‘I don’t think there’s anyone here,’ said Freddy, going to the bottom of the stairs.
‘Wrong,’ Cal whispered. There was no doubting the origin of the chill in the air.
Freddy ignored him. He had already climbed two or three steps. It passed through Cal’s head that his foolhardy show of indifference to danger, which was more than likely compensation for his cowardice at Chariot Street, would do no good to anyone. But Apolline was already accompanying Freddy upstairs, leaving Cal and Nimrod to investigate the ground floor.
Their route led them through a murky assault course, which Nimrod, being much the smaller, negotiated with more ease than Cal.
‘Poll’s right,’ Nimrod whispered as they passed from room to room. ‘The Weave’s here. I can feel it.’
So could Cal; and at the thought of the Fugue’s proximity he felt his courage bolstered. This time he wasn’t alone against Shadwell. He had allies, with powers of their own, and they had the element of surprise on their side. With a little luck they might steal the Salesman’s booty from under his nose.
Then there was a cry from the upper landing. It was unmistakably Freddy; his voice anguished. The next moment came the stomach-turning sound of his body tumbling down the stairs. Two minutes in, and the game was up.
Nimrod had already started back the way they’d come, apparently careless of the consequences. Cal followed, but stumbled into a table in the darkness, the corner of which found his groin.
As he stood upright, cupping his balls, he heard Immacolata’s voice. Her whisper seemed to come from every direction at once, as though she was in the very walls.
‘Seerkind …’ she said.
The next moment he felt an icy air against his face. He knew the sour stench it carried, from that night in the trash canyons by the river. It was the smell of corruption – the sisters’ corruption – and with it came a dismal light by which he could pick out the geography of the room he occupied. Of Nimrod there was no sign; he’d gone ahead into the hall, where the light was sourced. And now Cal heard him cry out. The light flickered. The cry stopped. The wind was chillier as the sisters came in search of further victims. He had to hide; and quickly. Eyes on the passage ahead, down which the light was spilling, he backed away towards the only exit door available.
The room he stepped into was the kitchen, and it offered nothing in the way of hiding places. His bladder aching, he went to the back door. It was securely locked. There was no key. Panic mounting, he glanced back through the kitchen door. The Magdalene was floating through the room he’d just left, her blind head moving back and forth as she scoured the air for a trace of human heat. It seemed he could feel her fingers at his throat already; her lips on his mouth.
Despairing, he scanned the kitchen one more time, and his gaze alighted on the refrigerator. As the Magdalene approached the kitchen, he crossed to the refrigerator and opened the door. Arctic air billowed out to greet him. He threw the door as wide as possible, and bathed himself in the chill.
The Magdalene was on the kitchen threshold now, trails of her poison milk seeping from her breasts. There she hovered, as if uncertain of whether she sensed life here or not.
Cal stood absolutely still, praying the cold air would cancel his warmth. His muscles had begun to jitter, and the urge to piss was near enough unbearable. Still she didn’t move, except to put her hand on her perpetually swollen belly, and pat whatever slept there.
And then, from the next room, he heard the cracked voice of the Hag.
‘Sister …’ she whispered. She was coming through. He was lost if she entered.
The Magdalene advanced into the kitchen a little way, and her head turned with horrid intent in his direction. She glided a little closer. Cal held his breath.
The creature was within two yards of him now, her head still moving back and forth on a neck of mucus and ether. Beads of her bitter milk floated towards him and broke against his face. She sensed something, that was clear, but the cold air was confusing her. He set the muscles of his jaw to prevent his teeth from chattering, praying for some diversion from above.
The shadow of the Hag fell through the open door.
‘Sister?’ she said again. ‘Are we alone?’
The Magdalene’s head drifted forward, her neck becoming grotesquely long and thin, until her blind face hovered a foot from Cal’s. It was all he could do to prevent himself from running.
Then, she seemed to make up her mind. She turned towards the door.
‘All alone,’ she said, and drifted back to join her sister. With every foot of ground she covered he was certain she’d think better of her retreat, and come in search of him again. But she disappeared through the kitchen door, and they left to get on with business elsewhere.
He waited for a full minute until the last vestiges of their phosphorescence had faded. Then, gasping for breath, he stepped away from the refrigerator.
From above he heard shouts. He shuddered to think what entertainments were afoot here. Shuddered too at the thought that he was now alone.
IV
BREAKING THE LAW
1
t was Jerichau’s voice she heard, Suzanna had no doubt of that, and it was raised in wordless protest. The cry startled her from the murky pit that had claimed her since Hobart’s departure. She was at the door in seconds, and beating on it.
‘What’s happening?’ she demanded.
There was no reply from the guard on the other side; only another heart-rending shout from Jerichau. What were they doing to him?
She’d lived all her life in England, and – never having had more than a casual acquaintance with the law – had assumed it a fairly healthy animal. But now she was in its belly, and it was sick; very sick.
Again she beat a tattoo on the door, again it went unanswered. Tears of impotence began, stinging her sinuses and eyes. She put her back to the door and tried to stifle the sobs with her hand, but they wouldn’t be quelled.
Aware that the officer in the corridor could hear her sorrows, she started across to the other side of the cell, but something stopped her dead in her tracks. Through her watery vision she saw that the tears she’d shed on the back of her hand no longer resembled tears at all. They were almost silvery; and bursting, as she watched, into tiny spheres of luminescence. It might have come from a story in Mimi’s book: a woman who wept living tears. Except that this was no faery-tale. The vision was somehow more real than the concrete walls that imprisoned her; more real even than the pain that had brought these tears to her eyes.
It was the menstruum she was weeping. She hadn’t felt it move in her since she’d knelt beside Cal at the warehouse, and events had proceeded so speedily from there she had given little thought to it. Now she felt the torrent afresh, and a wave of elation swept her.
Down the corridor Jerichau cried out again, and in response, the menstruum, bright to blinding, brimmed in her subtle body.
Unable to prevent herself, she yelled, and the stream of brightness became a flood, spilling from her eyes and nostrils, and from between her legs. Her gaze fell on the chair which Hobart had occupied and it instantly flung itself against the far wall, rattling against the concrete as if panicking to be gone from her presence. The table followed, smashing itself to splinters.
From outside the door she heard voices, raised in consternation. She didn’t care. Her consciousness was in and of the tide, her sight running to the edge of the menstruum’s reach and looking back at herself, wild-eyed, smiling a river. She was looking down from the ceiling too, where her liquid self was rising in spume.
Behind her, they were unlocking the door. They’ll come with cudgels, she thought. These men are afraid of me. And with reason. I’m their enemy, and they’re mine.
She turned. The officer in the doorway looked pitifully frail, his boots and buttons a weak man’s dream of strength. He gaped at the scene before him – the furniture reduced to tinder, the light dancing on the walls. Then the menstruum was coming at him.
She followed in its wake, as it threw the man aside. Parts of her consciousness trailed behind her, snatching the truncheon from his hand and breaking it in pieces; other parts surged ahead of her physical body, turning corners, seeking under doors, calling Jerichau’s name –
2
The interrogation of the male suspect had proved disappointing for Hobart. The man was either an imbecile or a damn good actor – one minute answering his questions with more questions, the next, talking in riddles. He’d despaired of getting any sense from the prisoner, so he’d left him in the company of Laverick and Boyce, two of his best men. They’d soon have the man spitting the truth, and his teeth with it.
Upstairs at his desk he’d just begun a closer analysis of the book of codes when he heard the sound of breakage from below. Then Patterson, the officer he’d left guarding the woman, began yelling.
He was heading down the stairs to investigate when he was inexplicably seized by the need to void his bladder; an ache which became an agonizing pain as he descended. He refused to let it slow his progress, but by the time he reached the bottom of the stairs he was almost doubled up.
Patterson was sitting in the corner of the passageway, his hands over his face. The cell door was open.
‘Stand up, man!’ Hobart demanded, but the officer could only sob like a child. Hobart left him to it.
3
Boyce had seen the expression on the suspect’s face change seconds before the cell door was blown open, and it had almost broken his heart to see a smile so lavish appear on features he’d sweated to terrorize. He was about to beat the smile to Kingdom Come when he heard Laverick, who’d been enjoying a mid-session cigarette in the far corner of the room, say: ‘Jesus Christ’, and the next moment –
What had happened in that next moment?
First the door had rattled as if an earthquake was waiting on the other side; then Laverick had dropped his cigarette and stood up, and Boyce, suddenly feeling sick as a dog, had reached out to take the suspect hostage against whatever was beating on the door. He was too late. The door was flung wide – brightness flooded in – and Boyce felt his body weaken to the point of near collapse. An instant later something took hold of him, and turned him round and round on his heels. He was helpless in its embrace. All he could do was cry out as the cool force made gushing entry into him through every hole in his body. Then, as suddenly as he’d been snatched, he was let go. He hit the cell floor just as a woman, who seemed both naked and dressed to him, stepped through the door. Laverick had seen her too, and was shouting something, which the rushing in Boyce’s ears – as if his skull was being rinsed in a river – drowned out. The woman terrified him as he’d only been terrified in dreams. His mind struggled to recall a ritual of protection against such terrors, one he’d known before his own name. He had to be quick, he knew. His mind was close to being washed away.
Suzanna’s gaze lingered on the torturers for only an instant – it was Jerichau that concerned her. His face was raw, and puffed up with repeated beatings, but smiling at the sight of his rescuer.
‘Quickly,’ she said, extending a hand to him.
He stood up, but he wouldn’t approach her. He’s afraid too, she thought. Or if not afraid, at least respectful.
‘We must go –’
He nodded. She stepped out into the corridor again, trusting that he’d follow. In the scant minutes since the menstruum had flowed in her she’d begun to exercise some control over it, like a bride learning to trail and gather the length of her train. Now, when she left the cell, she mentally called the wash of energy after her, and it came to her.
She was glad of its obedience, for as she began along the corridor Hobart appeared at the far end. Her confidence momentarily faltered, but the sight of her – or whatever he saw in her place – was enough to make him stop in his tracks. He seemed to doubt his eyes, for he shook his head violently. Gaining confidence, she began to advance towards him. The lights were swinging wildly above her head. The concrete walls creaked when she laid her fingers on them, as though with a little effort she might crack them wide. The thought of such a thing began to make her laugh. The sound of her laughter was too much for Hobart. He retreated and disappeared up the stairs.
No further challenge was offered as they made their escape. They climbed the stairs, then crossed the abruptly deserted office. Her very presence threw mounds of paperwork into the air, that spiralled down around her like vast confetti. (I’m married to myself, her mind announced.) Then she was stepping through the doors into the evening beyond, Jerichau a respectful distance behind. There were no thanks forthcoming. He merely said:
‘You can find the carpet.’
‘I don’t know how.’
‘Let the menstruum show you,’ he told her.
The reply didn’t make much sense to her, until he extended his hand, palm up:
‘I neve
r saw the menstruum so strong in anyone,’ he said. ‘You can find the Fugue. It and I –’
He didn’t need to finish his sentence; she understood. He and the carpet were made of the same stuff; the Weave was the woven, and vice versa. She seized hold of his hand. In the building behind them alarm bells had begun to ring, but she knew they would not come after her: not yet.
Jerichau’s face was a knot of anguish. Her touch was not kind to him. But in her head lines of force spiralled and converged. Images appeared: a house, a room. And yes, the carpet, lying in splendour before hungry eyes. The lines twisted; other images fought for her attention. Was that blood spilled so copiously on the floor?; and Cal’s heel slipping in it?
She let go of Jerichau’s hand. He made a fist of it.
‘Well?’ he said.
Before she could reply a patrol car squealed into the yard. The driver’s partner, alerted by the alarm, was already stepping from the car, demanding that the escapees halt. He began towards them, but the menstruum threw a ghost-wave towards him which caught him up and washed him out into the street. The driver threw himself out of the car and fled towards the safety of bricks and mortar, leaving the vehicle free for the taking.
‘The book,’ said Suzanna as she slipped into the driver’s seat. ‘Hobart’s still got my book.’
‘We’ve no time to go back,’ said Jerichau.
Easily said. It hurt to think of leaving Mimi’s gift in the hands of Hobart. But in the time it would take her to find him and claim it back, the carpet might be lost. She had no choice; she’d have to leave it in his possession.
Odd as it seemed, she knew there were few hands in which it was more secure.
4
Hobart retired to the toilet and gave vent to his bladder before he filled his trousers, then went out to face the chaos that had turned his well-ordered headquarters into a battlefield.
