Kill Fish Jones

by Caro King

  After he had been running, then jogging, then walking for a while, Fish began to feel calmer. Although he couldn’t stop thinking about Susan, his stomach began to tell him that he was hungry. He was angry with it because it had no right to go on behaving as if nothing had happened, but it rumbled at him all the same.

  He had reached the next town by now and there were plenty of cafes on the high street advertising breakfast, but that would be too painful because eating breakfast in a cafe was where he should have been with Susan. Anyway, he had very little money and there were other things he needed more than food.

  So Fish ignored his stomach and bought a postcard, a stamp and a phone call instead.

  The phone call was to Jed. It was no use ringing Alice, because her mother had an answering machine and the chances of actually getting Alice to pick up were too slim to risk. So instead Fish gave Jed precise instructions.

  ‘Go to Alice as soon as you can and repeat everything I tell you.’

  ‘Uh huh. I can go now if you like.’

  ‘As soon as we’ve finished talking.’

  ‘Righto! What do you want me to tell her? Hey! They knocked your house down! I saw it! It looks awful, Fish. Are you all right? Were you in it?’

  Fish shook his head out of habit, then remembered that he was on the telephone and had to speak.

  ‘No, Jed. I’m all right. Tell Alice I need her to post me as much money as she can manage …’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Jed!’

  ‘Yeah? I was going now …’

  ‘You need the address to send it to.’

  ‘Uh huh. What’s that then?’

  ‘Have you got a pen and a piece of paper?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Get some and come back to the phone, but be quick.’

  There was a rattle and a clunk. Fish had a horrible thought that Jed had hung up and cut him off, but then he heard Jed asking his mother for a pen. In his mind’s eye he could see his friend, still surrounded by that childish glow that most kids his age had already lost. A moment later Jed was back.

  ‘I’ve got a pen and a page of Mum’s notebook!’

  ‘Write this down.’ Fish spelled out the address, including spaces and commas, very slowly. He could hear Jed breathing hard as he wrote it down in his big, odd printing.

  ‘Now take it to Alice.’

  ‘Uh huh.’ The phone clanked down and Fish was left listening to the empty wire, something he always hated. It never failed to give him the creeps.

  ‘Hello, little boy,’ whispered nobody. ‘Stay and talk to me.’

  Fish hung up fast.

  ‘Well, I’m not surprised it didn’t work!’ Lampwick was saying for the umpteenth time. ‘You tried to brain him by dropping a … a … lump of old junk on him! It’s no wonder you missed …’

  ‘It was a piece of satellite and it fell from the sky. Why don’t you listen properly. The point is that the futures went wrong …’

  ‘You missed one, you mean! You’ll end up as bad as Wimble.’

  ‘… and he’s got extra-special vision!’ Grimshaw looked hopeful. ‘That might mean something.’

  ‘So what? The boy’s a freak of nature – it’s got nothing to do with the futures. No curse demon with an ounce of gumption would let a silly little thing like that throw him. And why can’t you STOP TWITCHING?’

  ‘Because I was made by YOU!’ snarled Grimshaw, twitching so hard he had to scrabble to keep his perch on top of the tomb opposite Lampwick’s coffin. ‘And it didn’t throw me, it’s just interesting!’

  Lampwick threw up his hands. ‘Useless! Useless! A curse that can’t even bash someone on the head! What happened to mysterious fevers, hearts exploding in the victim’s chest, people torn limb from …’

  ‘That’s enough! I’ve had enough! You make a third-rate Avatar and demand first-rate delivery! And it was a satellite from space. It was a brilliant plan …’

  ‘Pah!’

  ‘… given the dumb Rules I have to put up with.’

  ‘But your precious plan came to nothing, didn’t it?’ sneered Lampwick. ‘Not so brilliant now, eh!’

  Grimshaw screamed at Lampwick, lashing his tail furiously. By now, the twitching was so bad that every other moment he flipped several inches into the air. When the next spasm catapulted him off the tomb, he sprang to his feet and stomped off, heading for the worn stone stairway out of the crypt. Lampwick hopped down from the coffin and started after Grimshaw. Because Grimshaw wasn’t used to walking anywhere – he normally travelled by chronometer – and because his legs were bent like those of a cat rather than straight like a human’s, he tended to use his paws to help him get along. And Lampwick always lurched about like a zombie anyway.

  ‘Making you was a waste of my breath, you pathetic little half-life!’

  ‘If you were a real magician instead of a dumb thief, I might have been an Avatar to reckon with.’ Grimshaw lolloped up the stairs, with Lampwick staggering at his heels so close that he trod on the curse demon’s tail.

  Grimshaw hissed over his shoulder, flattening his ears back against his head. Lampwick would have stayed firmly where he was, deliberately crushing Grimshaw’s tail to pulp, but he couldn’t keep his balance and pitched sideways, staggering into the wall. Grimshaw whipped his tail free and set off again. Lampwick righted himself and followed.

  ‘You wouldn’t know how to be a curse worth having! Space junk! Falling sheep! It’s ludicrous.’

  ‘And you’re a fake with nothing but a few dumb tricks to your name. You … You CONJURER!’

  Lampwick howled with rage.

  Grimshaw reached the top of the stairs and bounded through the wooden door into the main body of the church. Lampwick tried to follow him. There was a screech as the robber’s invisible tether kicked in. He howled again, teetering for a moment on the edge of the stairwell, then lost his balance again. This time he fell, tumbling head over heels all the way back down.

  Grimshaw stood, listening happily to the howls of fury echo up the stairwell as his Architect ricocheted from one wall to another. When it was over, the demon grinned smugly and headed off down the nave of the church towards the main door. He pushed it open, using both paws to grip the massive handle, and then he was outside. The fight with Lampwick had vented his rage and had left him feeling keyed up and restless, but not angry. The twitches were beginning to let up too.

  He was ready to bet that Lampwick would be too battered – and too sick of his demon anyway – to summon him back. So, halfway down the path, Grimshaw paused, wondering what to do. He didn’t feel like having another go at killing the boy just yet; his failure with the space junk had made him wary. Although overlooking a possible future was the logical explanation, Grimshaw didn’t want to believe that he had made such a stupid mistake.

  Quickly, he searched the Acts and Facts, but came up with nothing else that might explain the unexpected survival of a Sufferer. Missed futures had happened to other demons, but usually they sorted the problem out on the next attempt and everyone just forgot about it. Except in the case of Wimble, the most hopeless of all curse demons, who was on his fifth go at killing one of his Sufferers because he kept overlooking some of the less likely futures and so didn’t allow for them in his calculations. It was this constant failure that had earned him a place at the bottom of the curse-demon pile.

  Grimshaw shook his ears. He knew he was a thorough demon and he was ready to bet that he hadn’t overlooked anything. Something else had gone wrong and he wanted to know what it was. He wondered if, between his checking the futures and steering the junk, something could have changed. As if something had interfered in a way that altered all of the possible futures. But what?

  As he disconnected from the web, a movement in the sky grabbed his attention.

  Beyond the rows of blank tombstones and the graveyard gate was a street whose dominating feature was concrete. Concrete was the one thing that Limbo did well. Where stone, brick and tile lost some ba
sic element of their nature, concrete stayed the same. Which meant that its drab, squalid all-over-the-placeness shone out like a used plaster in an empty first-aid box.

  Beyond the street, Grimshaw focused on three distant figures circling in the dull sky. The Sisters of Gladness. They were called the Sisters because they were sisters, and as for the gladness part … well, it was probably meant as a joke. Nobody was ever glad to see the Sisters.

  Remembering the Horseman’s words – that small demons belonged to the Sisters, whose job it was to make them see (whatever that meant) – an idea began to form in Grimshaw’s mind.

  As he watched, one of the Sisters dived, swooping out of sight behind the houses then rising again to join the others. He thought he could hear some horrible screaming and a lot of laughter. He was ready to bet his trousers that the laughter part was coming from the Sisters.

  As there were not that many small demons in Limbo, the Sisters spent a lot of time tormenting the other inhabitants of Grey Space. The Wanderers. Grimshaw had no time at all for Wanderers. To his mind they were just plain stupid. They were the humans who could not die properly because they did not realise that they were dead in the first place, and so could not go on to wherever it was they were meant to end up. Instead they had to wander Limbo until they worked it out. These Wanderers were the Sisters’ favourite prey and he suspected that the screaming he could hear was coming from one of them.

  The Sisters had singled out Grimshaw for attention a couple of times in the past and he knew how mean they could be. Once, they had pinned him under some rocks, all spreadeagled out so that he couldn’t reach his chronometer, and he had had to stay there all day staring into the grey Limbo sky until a passing Wanderer had taken pity on him and let him go. Quite how that had been supposed to make him see anything he couldn’t understand. For some reason, the thought of Beyond – the light behind the Grey Space sky – flitted across his brain, but he dismissed it. He didn’t have time to think about that now.

  Instead, he stared at the distant figures darting to and fro in the sky and wondered if they could answer the question of Fish Jones and his survival against the odds. After a moment, he found himself heading off towards the Sisters. It probably wasn’t a good idea, and it would certainly hurt a lot, but it was worth a go.

  15

  SISTERS OF GLADNESS

  In the street, four cars were arranged across the road. They were grey. Or at least grey with a hint of something that might have been a real colour once but had forgotten how to do it. The vehicles were also empty. Often, Limbo didn’t bother with details like old sweet wrappers, CDs, window scrapers, A–Zs, last week’s shopping still in the boot, etc., etc. It just copied the basic shell and left things at that.

  The silent street rolled out before Grimshaw like a plaster model that no one could be bothered to paint. A double-decker bus stood just past the bus stop looking grey and forlorn.

  When he was level with the Sisters, just a road away, Grimshaw realised that rather than walk up one street to go down the next, he could cut through the houses. So he dived across the road and headed up the garden path of the first one he came to.

  Getting in wasn’t a problem as locks didn’t work in Limbo. Nor was there any glass in the windows, as glass, with its world of reflections and its magical near-invisibility, was far too exciting to exist in Grey Space. Inside the house, Limbo had taken care to reproduce some details while totally ignoring others. There were no ornaments, pictures or items of clothing. There were no toys or games, but there were books on the shelves, ready to trap the unwary. There were no DVDs or videos, but there was a dead-looking TV. There were carpets and sofas and so on, but they had long ago forgotten how to be cosy.

  Pushing open the door to the patio, Grimshaw lolloped down the garden and over the end wall, using a plastic table and chairs as a step up. This brought him into the garden of the house backing on to the one he had just cut through. Here he found a plastic paddling pool. There was no water in it, just as there was no water in any of the taps, lakes or rivers. All the water in Limbo was where it belonged – in the sea. A sea which (predictably) didn’t do waves or tides or anything active like that.

  Grimshaw hurried down the garden, picking up a hoe as he went. He charged through the house, which was pretty much the same as the last one, burst out through the front door and headed for the street. This was the street in which the Sisters were having fun, attacking a Wanderer.

  Ahead, Grimshaw could see the man waving his arms defensively over his head. It was a pointless exercise. The Sisters were only playing with him. If they wanted to, they would have him in shreds in a moment. One of them darted at him, lifting him into the air, then dropping him on to the road where he lay stunned.

  Dragging the hoe, Grimshaw stepped forward. He dropped his backpack to the ground to give himself more freedom to move and to run if necessary.

  The Sisters spotted him instantly. They had better vision than an eagle. Although they weren’t as terrifying as the Horsemen, the Sisters weren’t pretty to look at. At least, their heart-shaped faces were lovely, so long as they didn’t smile and show their pointed teeth. Their hair was long and silky and floated on the air like thistledown, and the skin of their arms was smooth and golden, until it reached their bony-fingered, hook-nailed hands. But from the armpits down they were serpent-like with rough yellow-green scales on a torso that went straight into a twisting tail, without bothering about legs or anything. Their large bat-wings were the same unpleasant colour as their scaly bodies, but the most frightening thing about them was their eyes. These were the colour of emeralds and shone like lamps, and being caught in their gaze was like falling into a vast green emptiness from which you might never get out.

  ‘Ooh, look, Rage,’ said the youngest, whose name was Lady. ‘It’s Grimshaw!’

  ‘So it is,’ sniggered Rage. ‘We were talking about him only this morning and here he is! Poor little Avatar.’

  ‘Third-raters always look so … pathetic, don’t they?’ said Flute. She was the middle one of the three and easily the most cruel. ‘Remember the one like a pig with cramp?’

  ‘Wimble is a very fine Avatar,’ snapped Grimshaw, tightening his grip on the hoe. A little way off, the man lying in a bloody heap on the ground began to groan as consciousness returned.

  The Sisters stared at Grimshaw. He stared back.

  ‘I liked the pig one,’ said Flute sweetly. ‘He was fun. He squealed so much.’

  Grimshaw swallowed hard, flattening his ears against his skull and crouching closer to the ground. Behind the Sisters the man groaned and raised his head.

  ‘Oh, shut it up,’ said Rage.

  Flute darted forward, grabbed the man by the ankles and hoisted him off the ground. The movement revived him and he began to screech. Flute tossed him over a fence, where he hit a house, sliding to the ground with a strangled squawk.

  ‘I’m going to ask you a question,’ said Grimshaw firmly, looking at Rage, ‘and you’ve got to tell me the answer, right?’

  She burst out laughing, bobbing in the air above Grimshaw’s head. The others joined in. Stabbing the hoe at them as threateningly as he could, Grimshaw inched around so that he had a solid garden wall at his back.

  ‘The Horsemen told me it was your job to make me see …’ He paused, not knowing how to finish the sentence.

  ‘Oh, they did, did they?’ Rage sighed. ‘Really, they are so indiscreet.’ She folded her arms and frowned at him. ‘Our main job is the Wanderers, so even if it’s true, why would we want to help a pathetic little scrap of half-life like you?’

  Lady yawned delicately. ‘I’m bored,’ she said.

  ‘Because … it’s what you’re meant to do? It’s the Rules!’ snapped Grimshaw.

  ‘Oh, Rules,’ sneered Flute. ‘There’s no Rule tells us who to help. We’ve got some independence, you know, unlike you pitiful things.’

  ‘But you’ve got to help me, it’s your job! King One said so.’

/>   The Sisters swapped a glance. All three turned to gaze at him steadily, their green eyes bathing his face with light. Grimshaw got the feeling they were impressed by something. At any rate, he had their full attention now, though the thought made him shiver with fright. He really didn’t see why the angel Avatars’ help had to hurt so much.

  ‘Hmm, he told you his name, did he?’ said Rage. ‘That’s nice. Well, he should also have said that we’ll get to you when we’re good and ready.’

  ‘But I need you now!’ yelled Grimshaw, hopping from paw to paw with frustration. ‘You’ve got to because … because if you don’t, nobody else will!’

  ‘Funny little creature,’ said Flute indulgently. ‘It wants to be helped! That’s kind of sweet – so few of them appreciate our efforts. All they do is scream.’ She glanced at her sisters.

  Rage gave a tiny nod.

  ‘It’s strange that you should want to ask us something,’ said Lady, bobbing forward, ‘because we’ve got something to show you too. Let’s see if your question and our answer match.’

  Cautiously, Grimshaw lowered the hoe. ‘I want to know,’ he said, ‘why Fish Jones survived? What was it that messed with the futures?’

  There was a moment of silence. The Sisters’ emerald eyes were suddenly cold and cruel and Grimshaw shivered as if the temperature had dropped, although such a thing was impossible in Limbo. Technically, like the Horsemen, the Sisters were angel Avatars, but they didn’t look to Grimshaw anything like the pictures he had seen in Real Space books and paintings. You certainly wouldn’t put one on a Christmas tree.

  ‘Wrong question,’ murmured Lady. ‘What a pity.’

  Rage bobbed forward, her green lamps peering into Grimshaw’s inky ovals. The demon shrank away.

  ‘Tell you what – we’ll answer two questions for you: the one you asked and the one you should have asked.’ She stabbed a finger at him, nearly putting out an eye. ‘We’ll even show you how things really are, by way of a bonus.’ She brought her face close to his, so close that all he could see was the glow of her eyes. ‘If you have the wit to see,’ she added, snarling the last bit.