by Tom Pollock
The barbed-wire strand unspooled and she descended towards the rubble. There was a crack in the hoardings ringing the site, an exit into the labyrinth of collapsed masonry that separated Reach from the rest of London. The Wire Mistress walked her towards it.
Just before she slipped into shadow, she saw something out of the corner of her eye: two massive pneumatic drills were hacking one corner of a mouth from the earth. She could see lips with cracks and capillaries. A creature with a mouth that size would dwarf the Cathedral that rose above them.
She wanted to be scared of it, but she wasn’t. A part of her, a big part, was excited.
She didn’t want to want it, but Pen wanted to see Reach stand.
CHAPTER 41
‘Wake up! Wake up! Christ, you snore like someone’s shoved a hedgehog down your throat!’ A horrendous ringing filled Petris’ skull — one he couldn’t put down to last night’s pint of garbage gin. His eyes grazed open against the inside of his punishment skin and bright wintry light stabbed into his retinas.
‘Wake up! Wake up!’ The girl who was shouting at him wore a filthy hoodie. The reason for the ringing in his head became abundantly clear: she was repeatedly hitting it with an iron railing.
‘Gerrroffofit,’ he snarled, sour alcohol-flavoured bile bubbling in his throat. He swiped at the railing with a gauntlet, but the girl jerked out of the way easily.
‘Who in the name of my sadistic Goddess’ tits are you?’ he growled at her.
The girl ignored his question. She cocked an eyebrow as his breath washed over her face. ‘It’s what’s inside that counts, huh? Well then, I guess what counts for you is about ten pints of booze.’
A face from Petris’ memory battled through the alcoholic fug — but that face hadn’t had the grey-tinted skin, the concrete-coloured eyes. His gaze lighted on the railing. The tip on its spike tapered to vanishing point. ‘You’re Filius ’ bit of fluff?’ he burst out incredulously. She glared at him. He coughed and recovered himself. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Beth, is it? You’ve… changed.’
Beth sniffed. ‘So have you. Last time I remember you having manners.’
Petris waved a hand dismissively. ‘Oh, I’m hungover,’ he explained. ‘I always drink when I pray.’
‘Tough being religious, is it?’ she asked.
Petris barked out a laugh. ‘It’s like sleeping with another man’s wife,’ he told her, ‘nine parts guilt to one part ecstasy, and somehow you’re always alone again in the morning.’
Beth snorted. ‘Bitter, much?’ she said. ‘Well, I’d love to have the time to care.’ She clapped her hands abruptly. ‘Get it together, stoneskin. Sober up, rally your troops. There’s a war on, or haven’t you heard?’
Petris shook his head. Even the tiny motion made the world blur alarmingly and his pulse slammed unpleasantly at the base of his skull. He was very much not in the mood for idiots, which was a shame, because the girl was talking like one. With extreme effort, he hefted his heavy legs under his stone habit and walked into the shade of a leafless oak tree, big enough to cast enough shadow to get him out of that bastard sun. Only then did he rasp, ‘Come again?’
‘Rally. Your. Troops.’ Beth craned her neck over her shoulder, looking southwest.
With a sinking feeling, Petris realised he didn’t need to ask what she was looking at. ‘That’s what I thought you said.’ It had taken all of ninety seconds for him to regret waking up this morning.
‘I’m storming the keep, Petris,’ she said. ‘I’m taking Reach’s house. I need an army. Zeke’s boys did their best, but they didn’t cut it. I need more. I need the best. “ If there’s one thing I’m better at than drinking it’s fighting,” huh?’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Well, little did I know just how big a boast that was. Time to make good on it.’
Petris fixed her with a sullen stare. ‘I believe you were here when Filius asked the same,’ he said, ‘and I will give you the same answer: No. I cannot fight for Mater Viae’s return.’
Beth hopped onto the headstone for Stanley Philips. End of an Error. ‘Just as well,’ she said coldly, ‘because she’s not coming back.’
A shiver rippled up Petris’ spine. He went quiet for a long time.
‘Really?’ he said finally, with forced levity. ‘That’s interesting. Filius, Gutterglass and Fleet’s war party all say differently.’
‘Fleet’s war party says meow and bugger all else,’ Beth countered. ‘But as for Fil and Glas, they’re both wrong. I don’t know why yet, but I’m sure of it: Mater Viae is not coming back to London.’ Her voice was clear as she spoke. She didn’t blink.
Petris swallowed down enough of the mingled hope and disappointment rising in his throat to growl, ‘How do I know I can trust your word?’
‘You can’t,’ she said bluntly, ‘so stop taking people’s word for stuff. Work it out for yourself.’ She ticked off points on her fingers. ‘Her only son gets shredded by the Wire Mistress. Where was she? Nowhere. The first army to fight for her in fifteen years gets ground into dogmeat on the banks of the Thames, and where is she? Again, nowhere. And then of course there’s the Cats.’
‘The Cats that are never seen without her, you mean?’ Petris said, barely amused.
‘ Exactly.’ Beth leaned forward. ‘Not once, not for one day. I asked around. Not in the whole of recorded history have Mater Viae and her whole retinue ever been seen apart. So why in Christ’s name are they here without her now?’
Petris didn’t answer.
‘Unless,’ Beth continued, and paused.
She had one of those disturbingly intense gazes he could feel on the back of his own eyesockets.
‘Unless she’s somewhere else, somewhere the Cats can’t follow.’
Petris narrowed his eyes. ‘That’s thin, girl.’
‘Thinner than a supermodel’s cake budget, I know,’ Beth agreed, ‘but I’m sure it’s right. It feels right, doesn’t it?’
Petris breathed out and shut his eyes. Yes, it feels right, he admitted silently — but was that only because he wanted it to be true? Because he craved the simple joy of crushed scaffolding in his gauntlets far more than the intricate, addictive torture of secretly praying to a Goddess who never spoke back?
‘All right,’ he said at last, ‘I’ll sing the Treaty Song. I’ll put what you’ve said to the Stone Parliament. All I can promise is a vote, but it will take time.’
Beth blanched at the word time, but she nodded in reluctant acceptance. This was as good as she was going to get. She stood and turned towards the gate.
‘What?’ Petris said. ‘You aren’t going to wait for an answer?’
Beth shook her head. ‘Reach has got my best friend,’ she said. ‘Waiting’s not getting her any more rescued.’
‘I’ve heard,’ Petris said soberly. He was pissed off and hungover and had no inclination to sugarcoat this. ‘The Mistress’ host. I hope by “rescue” you mean “kill”, because that’s the best thing you can do for her now. Her death’s inevitable anyway.’
Beth looked at him in a way that scared him. It was a fanatical look, a look that didn’t accept that anything was inevitable, that wouldn’t accept it. A look that despised him for being weak enough to believe that it was. She hefted Filius’ spear.
‘So you’re going alone?’ Petris was appalled. ‘Into battle a — a God short. That’s-’ He floundered, and finally finished, ‘That’s rash.’
A thin smile crossed Beth’s lips, her face dappled red under the autumn trees.
‘Paraphrasing a wiser friend of mine,’ she said, ‘rash is where I excel.’ Her smile fell away. ‘Gather your church,’ she said. ‘Get the right answer. Get it fast.’ And she ran off through the trees towards the hooting traffic.
CHAPTER 42
Beth raced through London. She felt the gaze of the gargoyles from Highgate’s slated roofs, and haughty men stared down at her from tower block windows, reflections of people who weren’t there. It felt like the whole of the city was urging her on.
Railwraiths clattered past her, dragging carriages of commuters for another day’s work. The passengers were incurious; if they saw her at all through the trains’ filthy windows they didn’t acknowledge it.
She leaped off the tracks near King’s Cross and as her spark-scorched feet hit the tarmac she wound her way past the Chinese takeaways and minicab offices on Pentonville Road, as quick and subtle as water in a gutter. The pavements were thick with pedestrians all bundled up in thick coats against a cold she barely felt, chattering into mobile phones, laughing, complaining about how little sleep they’d had: the lifeblood of the human city, sluggishly beginning to circulate after a cold night.
They were slowing Beth down.
She turned into the backstreets, whirling past graffiti-covered bins, homeless people huddled in sleeping-bags and winos sleeping in pools of piss near the back doors of strip clubs. Drum’n’bass pulsed from an open window in a flat four storeys above — a student, maybe, a rich one, given how high the rents were in this area. She’d tagged these streets years ago; she retrod them now, this time leaving only a scent of petrol and damp cement behind her.
As the buildings became older and grander and the streets more narrow she slowed to a walk. The cranes reared over her; cruel hooks were connected to their jibs by umbilical cords of chain. A street sign on the wall above her read Dean’s Court, City of London EC2Y. She grinned to herself. These pavements her feet were drawing sustenance from belonged to Reach.
She rounded a corner into a pedestrianised square where glass towers punctured the old City’s collapsing grandeur. Now people were seeing her; more than one of the well-heeled men and women who were walking into these buildings stopped to stare at this apparition of oil and grime, with her railing and her manic glare. On the front page of their newspapers she saw versions of the same headline:
Earthquake in London, Chelsea Bridge badly shaken.
‘People believe the story,’ Glas had said, ‘not the facts.’
She grinned or grimaced or sneered — she didn’t know how these smartly dressed movers and shakers would interpret it. She felt more affinity for the buildings around her than these people. The only thing they had in common with her was flesh.
St Paul’s loomed to her left, quite beautiful in the clear winter sun, and she wove her way towards it. She felt a shiver as she passed through the Cathedral’s shadow, and she swore. She hadn’t realised how much she’d come to dread it.
Now, if I were the King of the Cranes, where would I hide?
She looked up. The nearest cranes sprouted from behind the row of buildings straight ahead of her. She eyed them uncertainly, and ducked instinctively as one whirred around, afraid it might see her. She breathed in the dust of dry cement, listened to the clamour and clang of the construction machines, and started to walk towards them, but she found her joints reluctant to bend. The muscles in her legs were trembling.
All right, B, you’re scared — no surprise. Don’t make a big deal out of it. Walk. You can work out what to do when you get there.
She braced herself and walked briskly down the steps.
CHAPTER 43
I’m trapped in frigid water. The wires bind me, bite me. I struggle, but I’m held tight, inches away from precious air. I can feel myself ebbing as the blood flows from my wounds. The sacred river squeezes me like a fist.
And as I lie there bound and bleeding out, my last thoughts are of the girl on the riverbank, the girl who, like me, now has the city in her skin.
I wonder how she’ll feel when the black-slicked figures come for me.
(I know they’ll come, they always collect on their debts.)
She’ll have to watch as they wade into the water and take the price I promised them. I try to imagine she’ll forgive me, that she’ll understand, but really, I know she never would.
‘Some poxy ingredient… Long as I live, not something I’m goin’ to use.’
I didn’t lie with my words, but I lied with my tone and my manner, with my smile — I had to, otherwise the stubborn girl would have taken it onto her conscience, and there was no way I could let her do that.
Dying, I still feel like I betrayed her.
And then there’s light, a shining human shape, diving towards the river, and my heart clamps up against my ribs. Panic swells my throat to bursting point. I thrash my head from side to side, choking on great gouts of the Thames as I struggle to shout NO!
As the shining girl enters the water, she starts to burn.
‘Lec!’
‘Lec-!’ In my dream it was a shout. Now, in my ears, it’s a feeble croak. ‘Lec…’
Rich garbage pours over my skin and I can feel the juices soaking into it, patching it up. I’m washed in old rainwater, in sticky Coca-Cola and congealing sweet-and-sour sauce. They are the city, as much as concrete and tar, these discarded treasures, and a nourishing broth to my almost-broken system.
After several attempts I manage to coax my waist into bending and I sit up. The blanket of rubbish tumbles away and my nice safe darkness is punctured by sunlight.
‘Ugh.’ I spit out hours-old blood. I pat around myself, searching for my spear.
‘My, my, what a mess. You’re awake then.’
‘Glas?’ My eyes adjust and he blurs into focus in front of me. After hearing his deep, rich voice, his body isn’t what I expect. ‘A baby? Glas, promise me, you’ll never ’carn like that again.’
‘Why?’ He sounds injured. Perched on a mound of milk cartons and old motors, he rests his chin on drinking straw fingers.
‘Because it’s creepy, that’s why. You’re almost as ancient as Father Thames, and kitting yourself out like a rotting foetus makes me feel old.’
He snorts. ‘You sound like your girlfriend.’
Light flares in my memory: sodium burning, fizzing away…
‘Electra didn’t speak aloud,’ I say.
Bugs bulge his cheeks in embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry. I meant- You know who I meant.’
I scrub the grit from my eyes and look out across the landfill towards the city. London’s massed ranks stretch into the morning smog.
‘Where is Beth, anyway? I think I dreamed she was here, she-’ I dreamed she kissed me, but I hesitate to say that, not with the memory of Electra, flashing in front of me.
Gutterglass shrinks a little. Beetles flee from his cuffs. ‘She’s gone.’
‘What? She’s gone home?’
His football-head deflates a little more. ‘She went to St Paul’s, Filius,’ he admits. ‘She’s gone to try and kill Reach.’
Something cold slithers inside my ribs. To try and kill Reach. Such a roundabout way to describe suicide. I try to drag my thoughts together. ‘Is anyone else missing?’ It sounds like the sensible question to ask, although at that moment I don’t care about anyone else. Beth’s gone.
‘The Blankleits tell me that Russian you recruited hasn’t been seen for a few hours. He’d taken a shine to the girl.’
‘Did he take any soldiers with him?’
‘No, he went alone.’
A poisonous taste is in my mouth. ‘Those two? Alone? The two humans — Thames and Christ and City blood, Glas! ’ I yell at him. ‘The only two who didn’t grow up with the legends, who have no idea what they’re up against- The Wire Mistress is there, Glas! Can you think of two people less suited to take her on? I have to go after her-’
I cast around, searching the ground. A sickening tightness seizes my gut. ‘Glas, where’s my spear?’
‘She took it to-’ He breaks off.
I look straight into his eggshell-eyes. ‘To drive into his throat, right?’ I finish his sentence, my voice going flat. ‘Just like you taught me. I wonder what put that idea in her head.’ I glare at him. He told Beth how to kill Reach, he acted like she could actually achieve it. Thanks to him, she’ll believe she has a chance.
I start to scramble over the heaps of rubbish, and pain flares around my joints, charting my injuries: an int
ricate topography of burns, bruises and barely sealed cuts.
Gutterglass’ eggshells track me. ‘Now that you mention it,’ he said, ‘yes, I can think of someone worse. How about a chemical burns-and-drowning victim who’s been half-flayed by barbed wire?’
I ignore him, doggedly trudging uphill in the refuse.
‘Filius, you can’t,’ he says, sounding serious now. ‘The girl’s as good as dead; the same for the Russian. This is war. People die. It’s too late for them. Surely they don’t matter more than the lives you can still save? The rest of the city,’ he pleads, ‘your kingdom. That’s what matters now.’
I don’t answer.
‘You have a responsibility,’ Glas presses on. ‘The army needs you. You’re the son of the Goddess. You have to be strong for all of us.’
Finally I round on him, teetering on top of a smashed-in television. I feel furious, groggy, drunk on shock. ‘Yeah? Once you told her I’d collapse if she died. You were trying to get rid of her. “Weeping, wailing, beating of breast” — remember that? I do.’
He nods, reluctantly, but his resentful eggshells track me, and in my mind’s eye I can see Electra’s yellow eyes behind them too. Both are accusing me of getting too close to the human girl.
‘You were right, Glas. If she dies, I’m wrecked.’ I stumble into a kind of half-run, Glas’ baby avatar skipping along beside me, borne on a constantly renewing conveyor belt of insects. Painful pins-and-needles start to ripple through me as my muscles wake up.
‘Filius-’ His voice has climbed to a higher pitch; his infant face is stretched in despair.
‘I’m sorry, Glas. I’m not proud of it, but she does matter more to me.’ I don’t know if he heard me, because the wind is starting to roar in my ears as I run.
CHAPTER 44
