The Sirens - 02

by William Meikle

  "That's the reason I'm here," I said. "I'm after some information."

  "You're going after it?"

  I nodded.

  "And you're not going to try to capture it...or any other soft shit like rehabilitating it?"

  He spat the words. I guessed his superiors might find a way to use his illness to pension him off...his views didn't chime with current policing methods. Despite that, he hadn't lost his copper's instincts...he'd noticed I'd hesitated on the answer.

  "You know more than you're letting on," he said.

  I placated him by showing him the gun bag.

  "Shotgun?" he asked.

  I didn't answer, and he took it as assent.

  "Blow its head off. And spit on the bloody stump," he said.

  "I need to find it first." I said. "Old Lady Malcolm's flat will be swarming with your boys. I need to know where else I can go."

  His eyes narrowed. "Do you know the engineering entrance to the Underground? Down at the far end of Cathcart Road?"

  I nodded. I'd done a security check for the Underground management some years ago.

  "There were three sightings of something strange down there, night before last. I'd start there...that's where we were heading last night, before we got the call to go to the auld lady's flat."

  I thanked him, and turned to leave. He called me back.

  "Adams...Derek," he said. "If you get it, I'll owe you another favor."

  "You don't have any photos of your partner in her birthday suit, do you?"

  He laughed, and was about to reply, when I noticed his gaze shift to over my shoulder. I knew who was there before she spoke.

  "If that's all you're after, then I'm sure we can come to an arrangement," Betty Mulholland said. She looked me up and down, and smiled sadly.

  "Spade or Marlowe," she asked.

  "Definitely Marlowe," I replied. "He got a better class of woman."

  She let that one go past her.

  "What are you doing here?" she said.

  "Just came in to check on your man here," I replied. An unspoken agreement passed between Jock McCall and myself...our previous conversation was just between us.

  I left them together. She'd looked like she wanted to offer me breakfast again, but neither of us wanted to have that conversation in front of the injured man. As I said, he'd lost some muscles, but none of his instincts.

  Once out of the hospital I headed towards Govan. It was still only just after seven o'clock. Too early for any action yet...or so I hoped. I parked in the High Street and went looking for food. I was almost tempted by a couple of bars, but even I wasn't stupid enough for that.

  I settled for a fast food outlet that advertised 'the best fried chicken in Scotland'. It lied. By the time I walked back to the car it felt like I had a brick perched inside my stomach. I had a take-away coffee with me, but I had no hope of it dissolving any of my meal.

  I sat in the car for a while, listening to the news and trying to figure out how to get the batteries into the CD player. There was no new information on what they were calling 'The South Side Monster', and the police were still getting it in the neck, apart from Jock McCall, who seemed to be getting lauded as a 'have a go' hero who'd been injured trying to save wee Jim's life. Again, my part of it wasn't mentioned. Part of me wanted the limelight, but mostly I was glad to keep living in the shadows...life was generally more interesting that way.

  The dashboard clock told me it was still too early to head for the Engineering depot, and I couldn't be bothered trying to figure out how to work the multitude of options I needed to pick to change the radio station. I took the CD out of my pocket, opened the case...and three folded sheets of paper fell in my lap. On the back, Doug had written in big letters.

  "I know you won't have read the research. Here's a summary."

  I smiled. He knew me too well.

  I slipped the CD into the car's player. Val Kerie started chanting softly over a background of battle rhythms on drum and bass as I started to read.

  "You know that Loki was one of the Norse Gods," he had written. "He was a son of Odin, like Thor, but where Thor was the big strong hero type, Loki was more of a quick-witted practical joker, with a malicious streak. He got up to all kinds of mischief, and for a while Odin tolerated him, as he provided great amusement. But Loki wasn't just malicious. He wanted power. To that end, as I told you earlier, he slept with a giantess, and their union produced three offspring, a hag, a huge serpent, and a large wolf.

  "When Odin heard of this he feared the power in these 'children', for he had seen a future where the children of Loki would bring about the end of all things. With the help of the other gods, he imprisoned the offspring.

  "The hag he sent to rule Hel, the Norse underworld. The serpent he sent to the depths of the ocean, where it grew so large it encircles the entire world. The wolf is chained and bound to two huge rocks, where it howls at a moon that it is one day destined to devour. So your 'Sons of Loki' could be followers of the wolf, or the serpent...or even both."

  I put the papers down long enough to light a cigarette, and smoked.

  "Useful as usual, Doug," I said to myself.

  Val Kyrie segwayed seamlessly into track two...a riotous thrash of screeching voice and guitar that I had to turn down before the car shook apart. I moved onto Doug's next page.

  "After that Loki started getting into more and more trouble, leading up to the tricking of the fisherfolk and the creation of the sea-wives. He was greatly chastised by Odin for that one. After that he seemed to settle down for a while. He even got married, and had two male children by his wife Sigyn, called Vali and Narvi. And things went well, for a while, but Loki couldn't contain his malice or his jealousy for long. And those two flaws, in turn, led him to cause the death of Baldur, the best and brightest of Asgard. (I'm sure you know this story, so I won't repeat it).

  "After that, many of the gods were just looking for an excuse to teach Loki a lesson. They got their chance, when Loki got drunk, and started abusing all and sundry. The gods chased him out of Asgard. Using his shape-changing abilities he went to ground, but Thor finally tracked him down in a cave by a riverside. Loki turned himself into a salmon, and tried to leap away, but Thor caught him. (By the tail, splitting it in two, which, incidentally, is how the salmon's tail got forked).

  "They took Loki back into the dank cave where they found his wife and sons hiding. One of the sons, Vali, became terrified and, overcome with terror and rage, turned into a wolf. His brother Narvi tried to calm the wolf...and was ripped apart for his pains by his brother, whose rage was so great that even the great Thor stood aside and let it escape from the cave.

  "The gods bound Loki, using his son's entrails as rope, and, again, using entrails, lashed him to three long slabs of rock. And as soon as the gods stood back, the bloody guts of Narvi became as hard as iron, binding the trickster in place.

  "And Loki cursed them, promising Ragnarok, the end of gods, if he should ever get free. But the gods were deaf to his curses. One of them brought a venomous snake, and by magic bound it to the roof high above Loki, so that its venom dripped for eternity into his face. And Loki could do nothing, could neither move left nor right. And there the gods left him. But his wife stayed.

  "It is said that she holds a bowl over his face, catching the venom before it gets into her beloved's eyes. But sometimes the bowl needs to be emptied. Sigyn has to carry the bowl away to a nearby pool, and Loki is left unguarded...only for the space of a single drop. But when that drop hits his face, Loki screams and writhes in torment. And at that moment somewhere in the world, Vali, his lost son, howls in sympathy, and the earth trembles.

  "So, to sum up, your 'Sons of Loki' could also be claiming descent from Vali, lost son of the bound god. (There's lots of obvious similarities between Loki and the bound Satan awaiting Armageddon, but I'm sure you spotted that)."

  I put the papers down and snorted again. I'm sure you spotted that. That was one of Doug's methods for
diverting attention away from the fact that he was the brightest person I'd ever met. It was designed to make me think that he thought I was smart. It didn't work. I was still in awe of his capacity to soak up information.

  On the CD the thrashing stopped abruptly, and there was the sound of a goat braying. 'Loki's Testicles', I guessed. Maybe Doug didn't know that one...it might be worth a try, and might even win me a pint. As Val started to sing a jaunty, almost folksy, air, I turned to Doug's third, and last, sheet of paper.

  "There's one more possibility that I turned up just before the lovely Joanna came in. I found one reference in a Masonic pamphlet of the 18th century to a group called the 'Sons of Loki'. They were a society of fishermen, and where Masons celebrated the history of builders, the Sons celebrated the origins of the fisherman, praising Loki...supposedly because he is seen in antiquity as the inventor of the fishing net. The pamphlet traced their origins to Orkney, to the time of the building of St. Magnus's cathedral. The local fishermen saw how strong the Guild of Masons were, and copied their structure and rituals in what the pamphlet called 'a debased form of the rituals of the great architect'. In the pamphlet, they say that the 'Sons of Loki' rituals have been practiced for a century, and that was in 1787. But you know what cults and new age groups are like. Maybe somebody has decided to revive the old ways. In which case I'd be ready for a mish-mash of hippiedom, paganism and sea-worship.

  "The thing that worries me is what John Mason is becoming. There's bad juju involved, Derek. Take care. Doug."

  At the bottom of the page he'd been doodling, some words inside think black circles. "The source = Loki Cave? Or St. Magnus? Or Fenris!"

  * * *

  None of it had done much except confuse me further.

  But it had passed the time. The CD moved on to track four, but I skipped it...save it for later...track five was the rocker I remembered from the hall. While she screamed I remembered her standing, sweating, at the front of the stage. That passed a very pleasurable five minutes. The track ended and I was about to switch the CD off when a voice spoke, just four words...the sort of thing people tack onto albums to be ironic, but it sent a shiver down my spine.

  "I'll see you around," the voice said, and there were two dull thuds...the sound of a finger tapping at a glass eye.

  * * *

  I drained the now cold coffee and drove along Govan High Street. I saw more cops on patrol in the next few minutes then I'd seen all year...the forces attempt to show they were doing something positive. I'm not sure the locals believed in them, though...the streets were strangely empty. I imagined most people were locked up tight...and not a few of them would be terrified of any bump in the night.

  Once I got out of the High Street even the police became scarce. I was now flying by the seat of my pants. I had only the vaguest of plans. I had the tranquilizers, I had the music...and I seemed to have acquired a one-eyed guardian angel. I was armed with more research than I'd had time to assimilate, and I was heading for a confrontation with something...maybe a man, maybe more that that. But I felt alive. And I had a tingle of excitement in my bones as I left the shopping areas behind and headed out into the wasteland of warehouses and small business units.

  The engineering depot for the Underground was in a spur off the Outer Circle, at the end of an exterior line that ran along the Clyde in a patch of overgrown waste ground. I was heading for a huge shed of corrugated iron that had once been the working home of two hundred ship builders. Now there were no more than five train maintenance engineers on site, and the place closed down at 6:30 p.m. each night. Apart from, that is, a night watchman. If things hadn't changed since my security inspection, the guard would be sitting, feet up, in front of a portable television. At some point he'd fall asleep and was unlikely to wake up until the first engineer came on shift at 6.30 a.m.

  The shed itself was surrounded by eight tall floodlights that lit the place up as if it was a football pitch. I parked the car just outside the range of the lights and switched everything off. I got the gun out of the bag, and got it loaded at only the second attempt. After lifting it and aiming out of the driver side window I soon realized that the car was too confining...I was going to need more space...not something I was happy about.

  I put the CD into the portable machine and carried it in one hand, the gun in the other, while I went to look for a likely spot for an ambush. I found the perfect place only fifty yards away-an old, rusting train carriage with an open door that was in the light, and an interior in darkness. I crept quietly inside and stood near the doorway, listening. A cold shiver ran up my back. The place stank...of animal, or human, piss, and a heavy, musty odor that might be just dampness, but might be something else, something bigger...much bigger.

  "If there's anybody there, I'd rather know now," I said quietly into the darkness.

  There was no answer, just the beating of my heart in my ears. I turned and walked backwards up the carriage, keeping an eye on the brightly lit doorway. Right at the rear of the carriage I found what I was looking for, an emergency door that could be opened from the inside with a quick blow to the safety bar, but which was inoperable from the outside. I felt slightly more secure as I moved back down to the mid-point of the carriage...but I still didn't take my eyes from the doorway. I might have an escape route...but I was nowhere near certain that I'd be fast enough to be able to use it.

  I rested the gun over the back of a chair and sat down. I put the four spare arrows in the top pocket of my jacket where they were in easy reach, and switched on the power to the CD player. I just had enough light from the LCD display to see the control panel. I skipped to track four...but didn't start it...not yet. I wasn't quite ready. I was a long way from being ready. I had the shakes again, so bad that I could hardly lift the gun, never mind point it in the right direction. I smoked a cigarette down to the filter, concentrating only on each breath, each inhale and exhale, trying to relax the muscles across my shoulders that were tightened into a knot of dull pain.

  Then I lit another cigarette and practiced my aim, trying to imagine where the torso would be in the doorway...always assuming of course that Mason was still a biped. When I'd finished the second cigarette I reached for the CD player.

  My hand stopped above the play button. I still had a chance to walk away. All I had to do was stroll over to the car and drive off. Sure, I'd have to pay the old lady back...but I could handle that. Then I thought of Doug, face white against the hospital sheets, of Jock McCall, collapsing in my arms, and of Wee Jim, as he turned toward me and death fell on him from above. My hand went down, and 'The Sea-Wives' Lament' began.

  I stared at the doorway until my eyes watered. Slowly, so slowly, as the song wound on, I began to relax into a state of watchfulness, to the place where my eyes watched while my brain kept itself busy. Doug had been too busy with his Joanna to leave me a new puzzle, so I gave myself some, trying to find short connections between widely diverse movies. I was somewhere between All Quiet on the Western Front and Dude, Where's My Car, when the song finished. I started it again straight away, turning the volume up slightly.

  The night wore on. I got through half a pack of cigarettes, my behind went numb, and I was getting tired of the song...so tired I was tempted to turn the volume up full and skip to track five. Then I heard it, a shuffling from outside, just loud enough to be heard above the music.

  * * *

  I held my breath, and raised the gun. The shuffling continued, and a figure moved into the doorway. The silhouette looked human, and there was a thin, keening sound coming from it. It took me a while to recognize it...whatever, or whoever, was in the doorway, was crying like a child.

  "John?" I said softly. "John Mason?"

  The head snapped up...just as the song finished. The beast howled and I watched the head change shape, a long snout growing, thin ears framed in the light. I smelled blood, blood and heavy musk. Its breath steamed in the air, and it raised its snout to the night sky. A piercing scream rent the air
and the figure moved, climbing up onto the coach steps, filling the doorway so much it almost blocked the light completely.

  I fired, and the silhouette fell away, just as the squealing rhythms of the last track kicked in. I lunged for the CD player, and knocked it flying away into the darkness where the battle rhythms of the first track began to pulse.

  "Shit!" I shouted, and raised the gun in front of me, but there was no movement...the doorway was a rectangle of light and there was no sign of my assailant.

  There was a thud from outside, as something fell heavily against the carriage.

  And I couldn't move. My fingers were locked tight around the gun, and my head pounded with the rhythms of the music. For seconds all I could do was stare at the door, and hope that nothing came through it.

  It was only when I remembered to breathe that the world starting filling in around me again. I cautiously made my way to the doorway. Just as I stepped down to the rough grass, something moved to my left. I turned, just in time to see a naked John Mason roll away under the carriage. There was a rustle, and a crash, then he ran across the patch of light between the car and me. He was moving fast...but not as fast as I'd seen him before. He headed for the corrugated shed.

  I reloaded the gun, and followed

  * * *

  A door opened in the shed, revealing a new rectangle of light. A hulking figure filled the space for a second before the door closed again.

  Halfway to the shed I found the tranquilizer dart on the ground. It still had half of the golden fluid in it. I put it in my pocket with the rest and started faster for the shed. Somewhere behind me I could still hear the first track of the album, but as I approached the shed the hum of machinery from inside drowned out the music.

  I stepped carefully inside, closing the door behind me. Not that I was worried about John Mason escaping...I had a feeling he was strong enough to knock his way through the wall if he wanted to. No...I wanted to stop anybody just 'dropping in'.