by Tom Pollock
A motor whirred into motion, a crane spun on its base and a hook shot out, burying itself with a splintering crunch into the windows on the front of Canada Tower. A second crane lashed out at the building behind Beth and she cowered as fragments of it fell around them. Jackhammers reared up and began to pound the pavement. A bulldozer smashed through the wall of the labyrinth. Through its windscreen, Beth could see that it was driverless.
The voice carried in the engines of destruction was shatteringly loud.
I AM REACH.
Beth felt dizzy, buffeted by the noise. Her knees slid out from under her and her chin smacked into the floor, but the pain momentarily cleared her head. There was something she should have …
She pushed herself up onto her elbows and looked across the square. Reach’s hook was still buried in the front of Canada Tower. The front, Beth thought muzzily. I can see the front. When did the waterfall stop?
A figure stepped out of the pool at the tower’s foot. Water sluiced down the streets that armoured Her limbs and glinted on the towers that rose above Her brow. Her eyes were the green of traffic lights, and they blazed with fury and panic.
For an instant, Beth looked full into the eyes of the Goddess who had killed her father.
Mater Viae’s mouth didn’t move, but Beth heard Her city-voice, so like her own that they could have been sisters, as She said, ‘No.’
The Lady of the Streets extended her arms and her Estuary-water skirts became a torrent of orange flame. Fire raced across the surface of the square. Scaffwolves screamed as it caught them, their metal voices jarring the air. Masonry Men burned like effigies as the flame spread in a flawless circle around Mater Viae and went zigzagging up the floors of the broken tower blocks, leaving only Canada Tower itself untouched. Beth hastily scrambled back as it neared the oil slick in front of her. The crude caught with a muted whoomph and the synod vanished, swallowed by billowing flames that reached thirty feet into the air. The heat was like a wall. Squinting through the smoke, Beth could just make out Oscar, flailing in the updraught.
An instant later, the cranes caught, showing black against the fire like silhouetted skeletons. ‘I Will …’
Reach’s voice ebbed into silence.
‘Beth!’
‘Pen?’
Her voice was coming from somewhere to the left; even over the roar of the flames, Beth could hear her panic.
‘Pen, are you there?’
‘Beth! Help!’
London’s burning, London’s burning. Fil’s voice was sing-song in her head. You know this fire; it can’t hurt you. Go!
Beth hauled herself to her feet and walked into the flame. She felt no pain, but the heat felt solid. She gritted her teeth and from somewhere she summoned up the physical strength to wade further in.
‘Pen!’ she called again.
‘Beth!’
She barely heard Pen’s call that time, the fire raged so loud around her. She couldn’t tell where it was coming from. She was disoriented, dizzy with smoke. The ground under her was melting into blisteringly hot mud.
‘Pen! Get out – use the wire!’ she shouted.
Strands of barbed wire whipped through the air, striking out for the edge of the fire, but they recoiled like burned fingers, their tips glowing red-hot. The flames were too fierce. Beth stared at them helplessly. Pen was trapped.
‘Pen!’ She dragged herself through the fire in the direction the wires had come from. The flames raged taller, louder: a bright blindfold, eclipsing everything.
Almost everything: Beth glimpsed a dark shape through the flame, a four-limbed shape – a human shape.
‘Pen?’ she called out. The shape grew bigger, more solid, seeming to materialise out of the flame itself. ‘Pen?’ Beth reached desperately out towards her – then she hesitated.
There’s no way Pen could walk through …
Four more figures materialised, flanking the first as Johnny Naphtha erupted through the wall of fire, arms spread wide, suit burned to charcoal, ash flaking white from his grinning teeth.
His arms enveloped Beth and lifted her off her feet. He bore her backwards, her arms still extended over his shoulder like a yearning child. Cool air washed over the back of her neck as they burst back out of the fire bank. Eight other charcoal hands were reaching for her, liquid oil bleeding from the cracks in their hands. It was cold, and viscous and felt suffocating on her skin as it spread over her.
‘Get the fuck off me!’ She kicked and struggled, but the oil-slick fingers didn’t slip an inch. ‘Pen!’
‘Beth … help …’ Pen’s voice was weak; she was coughing and retching. The fire was everywhere. Oh God, she couldn’t see Pen and the fire was everywhere—
‘Pen!’ Beth could barely hear her own voice now. The oil was racing up her torso, lapping at her jaw, the acid-scent of it stinging her nostrils. She gagged. Her teeth felt soft in her mouth. Her bones felt soft; she could feel them running down inside her, black liquid pooling to the floor.
‘Pen!’ she tried to shout once more, but this time no sound at all came out. All she heard around her was the crackle of flames as the world melted into black.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
‘Arissse, little Goddesss. Your city hasss need of You.’
Beth’s eyelids flickered: the world strobed brick-on-black. She was sprawled, her limbs flung out like a shipwreck victim. The floor beneath her fingers was rough-laid cellar brick. Her fingers – she curled them. They were solid again. She tried to focus; the shifting light revealed alcoves in the walls.
Fire – she closed her eyes and saw it, felt its heat on her face. There had been fire: giant billowing gouts of orange flame and—
Pen.
It was like a starting gun fired in her head. She struggled to push herself up. She had to get back – there was a fire – she had to get back – she had to help Pen, she had to—
Her muscles went slack. They were stringy and exhausted… There was a fire, a Great Fire, the flames hot enough to melt asphalt, and Pen’s voice had been right in the middle of it.
Beth opened her mouth. No sound came out, and no air came in. There was a vacuum in the core of her, turning her inside out, and she couldn’t spit it out.
Pen’s gone.
She couldn’t make sense of it – she couldn’t make sense of anything. The thought was giant, clumsy; nonsensical. It went through her mind like a wrecking ball, destroying everything she understood.
She closed her eyes. She was back standing on a moon-washed rooftop, before all of this began, stretching out too late to catch Pen as she slipped on the rain-slicked tiles—
—she was back in the headmistress’ office, burning with disbelief and anger at the sight of the headscarfed girl who’d turned her in, but never asking what that had cost her—
—she was crouching in an alleyway, putting the finishing touch to a breadcrumb trail of graffiti spiders at the end of Pen’s street, above them: a written invitation: meet me—
Beth flopped onto her back to see five men standing over her, their oil-soaked skin reflecting the lights from the alcoves. She tried again to speak, but still no words came when she moved her mouth.
‘Excussse usss?’ Johnny Naphtha said politely.
She tried again, and this time she spoke with all of herself; even so, she only managed a tyre-hiss whisper. ‘Meet me under broken lights …’
She dragged her knees into her chest. All she could hear was Pen’s voice, down in the labyrinth under St Paul’s: the plea she’d repeated over and over in those last few months: No further, no further down the rabbit hole, B. Take me home.
How many, Beth? she snarled at herself. How many warnings did you ignore? How many times did the world have to tell you that you were going to get her killed before you fucking well listened?
Five oil-covered index fingers tilted her chin up. ‘Dessspite our fondnesss for riddlesss, Misss Bradley,’ Johnny hissed, ‘there isss no time. Above usss, the Great Fire of your
Adversssary burnsss unchecked through your metropolisss.’
Beth opened her eyes and green light washed over their liquid tailoring. Her thoughts felt clumsy, confused. Why were they talking to her? Why did they think that mattered? Pen was gone.
‘So put it out,’ she snapped at them, willing them to leave her alone.
They sighed as one, their shoulders sliding down beneath their immortal grins. ‘Alasss, we lack the puisssance,’ Johnny admitted. ‘In the passt, it iss true, we have curtailed the Sstreet Goddesss’ insscendiariess when they have been deployed, but only at prescisssley controlled scalesss and quantitiess.’ Five foreheads contracted in identical, courteous winces. ‘Under the presssure of your asssault, Mater Viae lacked that circumsssspection.’
Beth’s own voice carried back to her through her memory: She doesn’t do subtlety … She over-commits.
She would have laughed if she could have remembered how. She would have beaten her own brains out on the bricks if she’d had the energy to lift her head.
Johnny was still talking. ‘There iss one force in the city that can exsstinguisssh the Great Fire in full flow, but as much as we wisssh it were otherwissse, we cannot accesss it.’ He tilted his head at her. ‘It requiress a Goddess’ touch.’
Beth stopped listening. Inside her head, Fil’s voice sounded. Stop, or carry on?
Stop.
You can’t stop, he said. They have a name for that.
I don’t care. Pen’s gone. Stop.
‘Your city needsss you,’ Johnny Naphtha repeated. His voice was like a fly in the room, a hissing strung-out buzz.
Beth managed to pull herself into a sitting position against the wall and looked at them. Their smiles were in place as ever, but the stretch of the eyes above them, the cording of the necks below, suggested panic. The Chemical Synod were afraid. Their stores, their ingredients, their markets: soon all would be on fire.
The City burns.
Beth wanted to kill them. She wondered if she could; if there was enough left in her wasted cells to at least murder Johnny before the others put her down. If she could have, she would have, without hesitation, not because of anything they’d done, but because they were alive and in front of her and Pen wasn’t.
Carry on, or stop? Fil asked again. The City needs you. All those people Pen wanted to save – they need you.’
Beth clenched her jaw. Don’t you dare use her.
I’m not, Beth, I’m only saying what she’d say if she were here, and you know it. You knew her better than I did.
‘Misss Bradley, time isss of the esssenssce …’
All right! she thought back at Fil, but then I stop. And I take you with me. Everything stops. Her eyes moved from identical black grin to identical black grin – the same grins that had beamed down on Pen when they’d given her the means to enter the mirror. They were her accomplices in Pen’s destruction and she hated them. She’d be damned if she was going to make it easy for them.
‘What do I get?’ she asked. Her mouth was full of the taste of burned concrete.
‘Excussse me?’ Johnny hissed.
‘Nothing for nothing: your equations always balance. That’s what you say. So what do I get?’
The five grins stretched a little wider. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘You ssstole. You owe.’
Beth pursed her lips. She leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes.
‘Misss Bradley?’ Johnny said, after a moment.
‘Hmm?’
‘I sssaid, you owe.’
‘I heard. You just didn’t say anything that interested me, so I didn’t answer.’
Johnny’s smile thinned. ‘This isssn’t for usss,’ he hissed impatiently. ‘It isss your city. Your esssensce. Your home.’
Beth opened her eyes. You are home. She remembered Pen saying that: Home is with me. Her tone stayed mild, but her hand clenched into a fist. ‘I swear to God, Johnny, you have picked the very worst day in the world to try to tell me what to care about.’
‘You would bargain for your very esssence?’ The synod’s eyes were black on black: the eyes of sharks at the kill.
Beth met them without fear, or any other emotion she could identify.
‘You would.’ It wasn’t a question.
For a moment there was only dank silence.
‘Very well, then we shall.’ Despite his anxiety, there was a note of eagerness in Johnny’s hiss. This was what he lived for. As one, the Chemical Synod unbuttoned their jackets and lowered themselves to the floor. They sat cross-legged, meeting Beth on her level.
‘A proposssition then,’ Johnny said. ‘One that might ssalve your sssolitude. We know what you sstole from usss; we can guesss where it now resssidess.’
They each touched a finger to their temple.
‘And we are well aware, alsso, of its incompletenesss. We could correct that.’
Beth glared at them, mistrustful. ‘What are you—?’
‘We can ressstore the young prince to corporeality.’
Corporeality … She held herself very still, trying not to visibly react. A body.
Fil’s voice in her head was eager but uncertain. Beth? Is he for real?
Ten oil-covered pupils studied her and she felt the hope flare in her. Reality: Fil, alive, complete, back with her. Despite her wariness, the offer shone a little light into the future, and in doing so showed there was a future after all.
But when she looked again at those frightened, unsheddable smiles, she knew she couldn’t take it, not for herself and not even for Fil – not when they were ready to give so much more. Their whole existence was at stake. This was a lowball bid. The equation had to balance.
And just like that Beth knew what she had to ask for.
I’m sorry, Fil, she thought.
Beth? Fil’s voice was uncertain, a child wanting reassurance. Beth? What are you doing?
But it wasn’t Fil, she reminded herself forcefully, not yet. It was only the sound of his memories rattling around in her head. The eagerness she’d heard in that voice was just her own eagerness reflected back at her.
Do you want this, Fil? she asked him, eager to be proved wrong. ’Cause Thames knows, I want it for you. Tell me honestly that you want it and I’ll deal, right now.
Of course I … Then he caught her meaning.
There was a long silence.
This is cruel, Beth.
Maybe, she thought, but by now she knew she was right. The brief hope of having him back guttered out in her heart. Maybe not. You aren’t hurt by it, are you?
Beth—
Are you?
No, he admitted.
Do you want this, Fil?
I can’t, he said at last, wretchedly. I can’t want. You know that. I only remember wanting, and that’s …
… not the same thing.
What Pen would do, if she were here – that was what she needed to do now. It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough. But it was all there was.
‘No deal.’ Beth’s voice was the sound of heavy doors slamming shut.
The synod leaned back.
‘Interesssting,’ Johnny murmured appreciatively. ‘What would you prefer?’
Beth thought of her dad, and of a girl with grazed palms.
‘You nicked the growth out of people,’ she said. ‘Put it back.’
Five heads shook like whiplash. ‘Out of the quessstion.’
Beth settled herself back against the bricks and closed her eyes.
‘We have already usssed it!’ There was a definite note of anguish in Johnny’s voice now.
‘So get some more – scrape it out of your own carcases if you have to; what do I care?’ She smiled, utterly without humour. ‘You stole. You owe.’
For what felt like a very long time, no one moved and no one spoke. The delay told Beth the synod were agonising, though their expressions gave nothing away. They were struggling with it. Beth had a feeling they’d never before been offered a deal they couldn’t weigh up in an instant.
She laid a hand flat to the wall, brick on brick.
‘These are feeling pretty toasty,’ she said, looking into the alcoves. ‘All these precious little bottles – do you think the Great Fire will reach all the way down here?’
‘If it doesss,’ Johnny Naphtha snarled, ‘you will burn alongssside uss.’
‘Better people than me have gone that way,’ she said, not having to fake her indifference. ‘And much, much better people than you.’
The synod breathed out slowly and oily bubbles popped over their lips. ‘We accept,’ said Johnny Naphtha.
*
The tunnel gave out onto empty space. Above and below and to the left and right of the opening there was nothing but darkness. A slow, rhythmic surging that was somehow familiar rose up from under her toes where they hung out over the edge of the bricks.
The only direction in which Beth could see anything was straight ahead. Across from the tunnel mouth, only a few dozen yards away, was a brick wall. Lights glimmered in its alcoves like constellations of bruised stars. Beth had seen them twice before; she knew what they were.
Every light was a bottle, and every bottle contained a memory, an emotion or an instinct. It was a vast artificial mind: the synod’s pet masterpiece. The lights flared and dimmed, rippling with patterns of thought so complex that Beth could barely tell they were patterns at all.
They’d had to carry her. Forget killing them, she thought bitterly, I can’t even walk by myself. She’d been half dragged through the brick warrens, a pair of oil-soaked shoulders under each arm, her toes trailing behind her in the dust. She was vaguely aware that once she would have felt embarrassed by that, but now it just felt like her legs were the smart ones, getting out ahead of the rush.
‘So what am I supposed to do with that?’ She gestured across the gap at the lights. The rancour had left her. She just wanted this done.
‘With that? Nothing,’ Johnny Naphtha said. ‘That isss our contribution.’
‘Contribution to what?’
‘The whissspering giant we sseek to ssummon hass languished for sso long in itss chainsss, we fear itss sssentience may have eroded,’ Johnny replied. ‘Thisss iss a replacement. Our enterprissse will avail usss nothing if we cannot talk to our client.’
