21
Images crashed into Dom’s mind:
In a museum, it looked like, jars of all sizes, yellowish fluid inside them the final resting place of plants and animals from all around the world. Somehow, Dom was watching from the side and above as a man leaned down, looked through curved glass of an extra-large jar at the visage of a fox, long dead, eyes shut tight against the light and its mouth pulled back in a final leer. Close now, the man fell back to the floor with a terrified scream when the fox opened its right eye and slammed its head, once, against the jar. Bubbles rose from its mouth, bursting one after the other as they reached the lid.
We are in London, said Arithmos. The Bones, they won’t stop spinning. The numbers were nowhere in sight, but he could still hear them.
Dom blinked away the vision, looked down at the box in his hands. Sure enough, the Bones hadn’t stopped, if anything seemed to be going faster.
As long as they keep spinning, there is much they awaken here, continued Arithmos. I am showing you some of it.
“Why?” asked Billy.
They create chaos. Some for you, most against you. The ripples travel widely, wake everything in their path. It’s best you see what’s coming.
There was more to see: high on the side of an old building, statuary scraped to life, relief carvings of saints leaned out over the streets, stretching to escape from their stone captivity, succeeding only in dropping shards of rock onto pedestrians below. One finally pulled itself completely free, wrestled with freedom for the briefest of moments, and then plummeted to the sidewalk, narrowly missing several people with its initial bulk, but hitting many in the explosion of hundreds, thousands of tiny fragments. Numbers glistened in the blood of every wound, fell to the sidewalk to mingle with the stone and dust, struggled to escape and join the search for Dom and the Bones.
“I don’t understand,” mumbled Dom. He’d finally been able to take stock of where he stood, knew he was on a sidewalk alongside a river. The Thames, whispered a voice in his head, many thousands of people jostling for position, not one of them concerned that he might have popped up seemingly out of nowhere.
Closer now, the ripples were visible, easy to see now that Dom knew what he was looking for. They stroked and prodded a great metal lion nearby, and with an immense creaking and grinding that stopped everyone in their tracks, it stood and turned its head to look at Dom.
And he suddenly realized he wasn’t seeing this somewhere in his mind’s eye.
There were screams from all around, and a mad rush of people running in all directions, some out into the street where a couple were hit by vehicles unable to stop in time. Dom opened the box, tried to put his hands to the Bones to make them stop, but no matter how hard he pushed he couldn’t touch them, his hand shoved away, like a magnet against the same pole.
The lion stepped out onto the sidewalk, staring down at him with blank eyes. It opened its mouth to roar, but the sound that came out was far more hideous and frightening, metal against metal, a high pitched scrape that drove right down through his bones. “What the hell is happening?” he asked, voice a hoarse whisper.
Help is coming, said Arithmos. Just stay alive until it does.
“Just stay alive?” Dom’s voice cracked as he yelled this. “What the fuck sort of advice is that?” His voice seemed to break the spell, and the lion jumped forward and swiped with one immense paw. Dom reached into his pocket, made contact with the puck, and skated away over fresh ice around and behind the lion, bounced off a nearby lamp post and fell to the pavement. The metal beast turned its head, sensed him again, and with a grinding crash lunged forward, teeth clamping down on air only because Dom was able to find the puck again. This time it led him out over the stone wall and down a madcap slide of ice onto the river, the water below and ahead of him freezing over, a spreading fan of translucent white stopping the surface flow of the river. He pushed it as hard as he could, skating away from the shore, but the lion leapt over the stone wall and down onto the ice he’d left behind, and even though Dom concentrated everything he could on his escape, Arithmos showed him his pursuer, more images like a movie running through his mind. The lion crashed to the ice, which buckled and cracked under the impact, but it held, thick and strong and not yet ready to melt. The beast’s metal feet quickly gained purchase and then it was rushing after him, cheered on by dozens of green copper lion heads embedded in the walls along the river’s embankment, their chorus of approving, frightening voices muffled by the rings lodged in their mouths.
The ice reached far ahead of Dom, and a distant part of him thought to be amazed by the incredible power of the puck in his pocket. The river buckled and froze around a tour boat off to his right, and pieces of the vessel broke away from the sudden stop; several people standing outside at the front of the boat were pitched over the edge, and Dom caught a glimpse of red staining the ice where they lay.
Ah, came the voice of Arithmos. The ripples have reached help.
Dom looked around but couldn’t see anything, and then Billy said, “Up!” From above came two creatures, both something like small dragons.
The closer one dropped onto the lion, a crash of metal on metal, while the other fell into place, still flying, beside Dom. “Keep moving,” it said, voice scraped from a place dry and deep.
Dom glanced over, saw that it wasn’t a dragon, but rather a gryphon, and that it was made of stone. Numbers from the spinning Bones rolled over it in fast waves; these were what kept it animated and flying, the numbers shifting and bending like muscles overlaying its body in a flickering grid pattern. “Where am I going?” he asked. A look back now showed that the lion had batted away the other dragon or gryphon, which was lying in pieces scattered across the ice, and it had resumed its pursuit.
“Swing left, back to the shore you were on,” it said, leading the way. Dom turned hard and pushed even harder for the shore, and the lion, seeing he was scribing an arc, moved to cut him off.
“Now let go of your artefact!” yelled the gryphon, and it swung around and grabbed Dom by the shoulders. He felt a tearing pain in both arms as he was lifted into the air, but as soon as he let go of the puck in his pocket the ice stopped forming in front and began to melt in behind.
On the sidewalk above the river, hundreds of people scattered when the gryphon let him down, but many more stayed closer to take pictures. Dom turned and looked, saw the lion drop through suddenly thin ice, plunging to the bottom of the river with no sound and only the feeblest of motions.
Dom could hear sirens now, from all directions. The gryphon that had pulled him off the river stood motionless for a few seconds, then said, voice growling but quiet, “You’ll be safest at Westminster Abbey. Consecrated ground offers some protection against my kind rising at times like this.”
“You saved me. Don’t I want your kind to be around?”
Life from stone and metal, said Arithmos.
More images in Dom’s head:
Soldiers, stepping down from the pedestals that celebrate their contributions in wartime, waving metal rifles and swords as they read the numbers in the air, looking for the path towards Dom. Around them people scattered, fear as thick as the numbers right now.
In a distant green park, monsters that looked like a child’s primitive idea of dinosaurs come to life, stretching long petrified legs as they began their march to the Bones. A child at the park, too slow to respond, was knocked to the ground by a swinging tail, bleeding and shattered in his mother’s arms, as still now as the statues once were.
“The dragons and gryphons will work with us,” said Billy. Dom could feel his sudden understanding wash over both of them. “The rest won’t, or can’t. Napier can work those numbers in his favour.”
“Correct.” The stone gryphon nodded its head. “No matter how we were created, stone and metal know their ancestry and allies, and while all of the others may bend to Napier’s will, our kin—dragon and gryphon both—have always given freely of their essence when
we’ve been created, been there to help defend the land and the city that was once, millennia ago, our home.” It flapped its wings, rose into the air. “Now. Use your artefact and follow me to the Abbey. It’s your only chance, at least until the Bones finally stop their spinning.”
Dom pulled the puck from his pocket and held it tight in his hand, skated after the gryphon, dodged traffic and pedestrians and raced between buildings, trying to keep it in sight. Twice in the distance he saw large stone or metal figures walking towards him, but both times they were too far away to worry about, at least for the moment.
He rounded a corner and found himself in a narrow lane, this one miraculously free of people. The gryphon hovered just above the pavement, facing him. “Follow this road,” it said, gesturing with its head. “There’s a back entrance to the Abbey; it will be open for you. Once you’re in you’ll be safe, at least from marauding stone and metal.” It flew straight up then, launching itself high above the buildings.
Dom again put the puck back into his pocket and ran, hoping he wouldn’t come across any more creatures, and hoping almost as much that any witnesses down by the river wouldn’t have been able to keep up with him. More sirens were sounding, and the police were another worry, but he made it to the Abbey after only a moment of panic, when from around a corner a walking statue had stepped and caught him in its dead stone glare, a sight that caused him to run even harder. And then he was there, and sure enough, a small door was open, and he dashed across the open space and into the old church. Numbers seemed to jump out of a distant nook as the door shut itself behind him, but they were far gone before he could do much more than blink. He ran down some hallways, made a couple of wrong turns that he had to double back on, and then he had joined the crowds of tourists that regularly filled the Abbey, thankfully none of them likely even aware of what had happened down by the Thames. Across the open space of the Abbey, past the crowds, something flashed in the corner of his eye, but when Dom turned to look it was no longer there, no matter how long he stared.
“I’ve . . . been here,” said Billy, interrupting Dom’s searching.
“Can’t come as much of a surprise,” replied Dom, trying to keep his voice low. “You’re British and this place is pretty damned famous. But were you here as yourself or as an adjunct? That’s the question.”
Dom could see no place to sit and rest, so he walked over to a corner and leaned against the stone wall, watched the people walk by. He opened the lid to the box, saw that the Bones were finally slowing down. Numbers still sloughed off of them and spilled to the floor, but the seismic waves that had emanated from the box earlier were no longer so apparent.
“Consecrated ground,” said Billy, as he watched the numbers drop to the floor.
“Good thing,” responded Dom. Everywhere he looked there were statues decorating crypts, representing the dead kings and queens and knights of old. Tourists shuffled past them, some pausing long enough to read badly worn memorial inscriptions, but most just taking the time to try and read the dates, those numbers so old and worn that they could barely rise above the metal or stone where they had been written.
Dom felt a grinding sensation from the stone he leaned against, something distant and huge moving either outside the old church, or somewhere deep inside. Numbers poked at his back, and he stepped away from the wall and moved on, casting a glance over his shoulder, hoping like hell something new wasn’t going to burst through the stone and come at him.
He fell in with the flow of people, but only passively paid attention to the sights as a tourist might see them. Instead, he watched the statues for signs of movement, watched the numbers coming from them for anything new or different. One tableau was a remarkable sculpture of a grinning skeleton Death, rising up from below and threatening a man and a woman with a sword. He stood and watched that one for long enough that eventually the numbers from the spinning Bones had built up enough to seep into the floor and travel the distance to the skeleton. Its toes wiggled slightly, and Dom quickly stepped away.
“Consecrated doesn’t mean impossible, I guess,” he said, once he was far enough away to be sure the skeleton was no longer moving.
Billy nodded, but before he could say anything a hand had taken Dom by the elbow and pulled him into a quiet corner. Dom spun around, hand going to the puck and ready to throw some numbers at whatever or whoever this was. But he quickly backed down—even though it was just a shadow flat against the wall with nobody to cast it, and with a different shape since the last time, he knew that it was Arithmos.
“I thought you couldn’t exist on consecrated ground,” said Billy.
“It’s painful, almost incapacitating, and leaves me with little ability to do much besides appear to you,” answered Arithmos. “But it’s important enough for me to be here to put up with it.”
Dom set aside the thought of numbers being able to feel pain and asked, “What’s happening now?”
“Word has gotten around,” said the numbers. “You won’t remain safe in here for too much longer. Remember, if I can come in, so can others. The protections here can only hold so long”
“We also won’t be safe if we leave,” replied Dom. He looked at the numbers. “And I thought Napier had turned you.”
The shadow on the wall tilted its head in agreement. “Fair enough. So we have to find a safe way to get you out of here. And it was a different set of numbers turned by Napier, even though the ecology shares its memories.”
Dom held up the box. “Doesn’t help that the damn Bones are still spinning.”
“Agreed. They’re slowing down, as I’m sure you’ve seen, but they still haven’t stopped. It’s a feedback loop that keeps them going. It is the nearest thing to a perpetual motion machine you’ll ever see, I would imagine. Numbers all across Britain are worked up about the pending event, and their reaction helped spin the Bones into a frenzy.”
“‘Event’? Jesus, what the hell sort of word is that? I don’t know what the hell will happen if the Napier adjunct gets his hands on this box, but I’ve been universally guaranteed that it’ll be a Bad Thing.”
“So say many of us,” said Arithmos. “But not all; you know that. The spinning Bones at first helped you by moving you to new safe locations as your previous setting was compromised, but those numbers that are not on your side have managed to grab hold of them and keep them spinning.”
“So what do we do to get out of this?” asked Billy.
Arithmos seemed to shrug. “Your only option may be to dump the Bones and run.”
Dom shook his head. “Napier wouldn’t leave me alone when I didn’t have the Bones, so he sure as hell isn’t going to just wave goodbye when I leave them behind. He doesn’t even have to worry about me getting a head start this time, since any direction I choose will have something standing guard.”
“So what do you suggest?” asked Arithmos. “We’re keen to help, but the numbers that can serve you will be limited.”
“Can you follow me?” asked Dom. “I got a whiff of something when I came in, and I wanna check it out.”
“Put your hand on the wall,” said the numbers. Dom did so, and they crawled up along his arm and in under his clothes. The numbers tickled and scratched as they settled into place, and he winced, resisting the urge to reach under his shirt and rub at them.
“Where to now?” asked Billy.
“I don’t know, exactly. But I saw a flash of something when we came in. Did you see it?”
Billy nodded. “I thought it was just a light.”
Dom grinned. “You were too busy worrying that we were being followed. It was numbers, and at first I put it down to something responding to the Bones. But since we saw that skeleton take its time even moving its toes, it had to be something else.”
Dom felt a stirring under the collar of his shirt, and the numbers crawled up his neck and into his ear. “There are other numbers in here,” said Arithmos, a whisper in his ear. “But none are of any consequence. They’re o
ld, fossils that left the ecology and chose to stay with whatever remained of their sources.”
“What if one of those sources was in the Abbey now?”
“That’s nonsense, Dom,” said Billy. “Of course the sources are in the Abbey. There are plenty of dead bodies around, so their sources have always been here.”
Dom nodded. “Right. I knew that.” He took a step and then stopped, noticing suddenly that the people around him had suddenly slowed down. “What the hell?”
The crowds of tourists were still moving along, not just slowly but in slow motion, their speed reeled back like a gunplay scene in a John Woo movie. Standing in the middle of it all, Dom was still capable of normal speed, but for the moment he just stood there, open-mouthed and astonished. All was quiet now as well, the only sound Dom’s breathing. The tourists slowed even more, until they were almost, but not quite, at a complete standstill.
Dom looked down to the Bones for a sign of anything different, but while they had been gradually losing their momentum since he’d first arrived in London, the difference didn’t seem to be enough to explain this strange event. The numbers themselves still spilled off from the Bones at their usual speed, although as they reached out from where he stood they also slowed down, until by the time they met up with the almost frozen people grouped around him the numbers too had also come to a near stop.
In the distance, in a more open part of the old church, there was movement, normal speed. Dom watched as a number of priests or monks walked a procession towards the altar, each carrying a candle. As each got to his destination he bowed and then disappeared, snuffed out like the flame on his candle.
Napier's Bones Page 20
