The City's son st-1

by Tom Pollock

  She turned and looked at Beth. ‘ Be that something, Beth. You bear the aspect, you carry the spear. It was you who brought the Great Fire down on the Crane King. Please- ’ There was a keening hunger in the rubbish-spirit’s face. ‘Give us a Goddess we deserve.’

  Beth held the eggshell gaze. She saw Glas’ sincerity, heard the hope, weak but still audible, in her voice, like a lost child who never stops believing that her mother will come get her.

  Beth gritted her teeth. Sympathy flared hot as a match and died just as fast in her chest. ‘You’re wrong,’ she said, ‘it wasn’t the Lady of the Streets they fought for, it was the streets themselves. These people don’t want a God no more.’

  Gutterglass began to protest, stuttering and spitting rubbish juice, but Beth raised a hand to silence her. ‘You know, something’s been bugging me. Why, after fifteen years of ignoring him, would Reach suddenly attack Fil — and why use a Railwraith to do it? After all, he had a whole wolfpack at the tip of his cranes.’

  She gazed at Gutterglass with utter loathing. ‘Then I realised: it was all you. It was your rats that got into the grid’s cables. You couldn’t control a Scaffwolf so you used a wraith and laid the blame oh-so-carefully at the front door of St Paul’s. Reach wouldn’t take any interest in Fil, not unless he was a threat, so you made him one.’

  Beth’s lip curled. She thought of what he had told her the first night they met: Something that big and angry comes at you, your first instinct’s to stick it with something sharp. Gutterglass had known her ward well.

  ‘You manipulated everyone I cared about. That lie your Goddess told? You told it again, and again, and you kept telling it, letting the hurt sink in.’ The words tasted bitter in her mouth. ‘The lie’s over, Glas. People need to hear the truth.’

  She turned and began to stump down the landfill towards the city. A hand made of ballpoint pens clamped onto her shoulder.

  ‘You really think they’ll believe you?’ Gutterglass hissed. ‘You spread this pathetic excuse for a myth and I’ll bury you. I’ll make you a changeling: the girl who killed their God. The very streets you walk on will hunt you.’

  Beth seized Gutterglass’ wrist and ripped the hand off her shoulder. She squeezed, and felt the bugs flee in panic under her fingers. She bent it back slowly, turning around. She stared into those shells, and saw the hope was gone. Only blank white hatred remained.

  ‘I’m not going to tell ’em,’ Beth said. ‘You are.’ She pulled her hoodie to one side to reveal the tiny spider, glittering like fibreglass in the hollow of her throat. ‘In fact, you already did.’

  Gutterglass uttered a strangled cry and swiped at the tiny creature, but in a flicker of light and static it was gone, its message replicating and copying at the speed of radio waves. Gutterglass’ voice, the voice that had for so long spoken falsely for London’s Goddess, would utter its confession on every street corner. Beth felt a tiny surge of triumph. Her city would know the truth tonight.

  ‘Come back!’ Gutterglass called after it. ‘Come back, please! I’ll pay!’ But it was pointless. Beth and the spider already had a deal.

  For a long moment Gutterglass just stood there, her paper face smooth with shock, then she exhaled. She began to pat herself, searching for something. She popped a cigarette between her lips, but couldn’t find any matches. She looked utterly lost.

  Moved by a strange pity, Beth picked a half-empty plastic lighter from amidst the rubbish and lit Gutterglass’ Lucky Strike. She turned to go, but then paused. ‘What was their price for you, Glas?’ she asked quietly. ‘When you made Fil what he was? What did the synod make you pay?’

  She looked over her shoulder at the decaying woman.

  ‘What did you use to be?’

  Through the smoke that twisted between them, Beth saw the sour-milk tears stain the paper face. And below them a smile that remembered happier times.

  ‘Beautiful,’ Gutterglass said.

  CHAPTER 56

  Beth Bradley and the street-urchin Prince, on the day they stood together on the roof of the world.

  Beth’s sketches of her and Fil grinned out from the metal. Above Beth’s image a signature had been scrawled. The space over his face was empty.

  Beth leaned back to scrutinise her handiwork. It was still rough, but it was definitely coming along. A vast three-dimensional map now covered the back of the throne: streets, squares, parks, plazas. St Paul’s, Big Ben, the Wheel: London as she could see it from the top of its highest skyscraper. The tower block crown sprouted from the middle of the financial district, camouflaged as just another set of anonymous offices.

  Beth’s spray can clanked as she dropped it back into her backpack and rummaged around for the silver. Before she was done, every Lampfolk encampment, Demolition Field and God-possessed crane would be marked on here. She shaded her eyes from the sun and got her bearings, and then began to spray in a crop of tiny streetlamps. She’d already painted in the Motherweb, the radio tower to the south.

  Monument; memorial; mural: it was an invitation to anyone who came up here to tread in her footsteps and see what she’d seen. It was risky, but somebody crazy enough to climb this tower in the first place, somebody able to trust the map enough to follow it — well, it might be worth it.

  A tickle in the back of her throat was her only warning. A second later a hacking cough burst out of her. She bent double, bracing her hands on her knees, until eventually she was able to straighten up.

  ‘Testing,’ she said tentatively, still feeling a little giddy. Her voice came out as a dry whisper: ‘Testing, one-two-three.’

  She sighed. Bloody typical: her voice had decided to return when she was a seven-hundred-foot straight drop away from any possible conversation. She glanced at the metal railing that ran around the pyramidal roof and — just for a wild moment — she considered vaulting it and scrambling harum-scarum down fifty storeys. After three weeks of silence, the prospect of a chat made it almost worthwhile.

  But there was no time. Instead she squatted down on Mater Viae’s oversized throne. She definitely didn’t want the Pylon Spiders to think she was reneging — deals were sacred, after all. ‘Might as well talk to yourself then, B,’ she said huskily, letting her voice swim around her in the air. The thought that she might have forgotten what she sounded like worried her.

  ‘Salamander. Loop-de-loop. Bling. Cockerspaniel. Supercali fragilisticexpiali-bloody-docious.’ She smiled. ‘Fuck, shit, bollocks, piss and crap.’ She exhaled hard. ‘Love.’

  She looked at the picture she’d drawn.

  ‘I really did love you, you filthy little bastard,’ she said. It felt important to speak it aloud when she could.

  A static crackle carried through the air and she sighed. Time was up.

  She felt needle-pointed feet pricking between the fine bones in her foot, and then they scrambled up her leg. She only saw the spider for a second, when it crested her shoulder, then it vanished under her chin and prickled in the hollow at the base of her throat.

  ‘ Ready? ’ The spider’s voice had been borrowed from some sports radio broadcast.

  ‘Yes,’ Beth replied, and she felt two pricks where the spider’s mandibles split the skin of her neck.

  ‘ Set. Go! ’

  It didn’t hurt, but her vocal chords went taut and she felt the sound bleed out through the puncture wounds, drop by drop, syllable by syllable. She was gripped by an irresistible urge to swallow, to steal a few decibels back, keep a whisper for herself — but she knew it didn’t work like that; the deal had been for everything: her entire voice. The Motherweb had a long history with Gutterglass, and their price for helping Beth to expose her had been very high. The ‘volunteers’ the spiders kept lashed to their radio mast never lasted long; they were exposed to the elements, and without food or water their voices soon dried up and died, leaving the spiders to range out over the city again, tapping the wires for the forgotten and vulnerable.

  Beth had offered her own voice, strong a
nd sustained — they could have whatever sustenance it gave them, for the rest of her natural life. The only condition was that they had to collect it from her in the wild. She’d let the Pylon Spiders farm her, but at least she’d be free range. And if she gave them everything they needed, then they didn’t need anyone else.

  Last night Beth had watched as the red-haired girl had stumbled free of the spiders’ tower. She, at least, had embraced the chance to face the world again.

  After the spider had finished feeding and gone, Beth sat for a while on the roof. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth, but nothing came out, not even a hiss. She looked up at the mural, her story, etched in paint and pigment on the City itself, and her lips twisted into a wry smile. It was worth it.

  Pen waited for her at the bottom of the tower. It was a Sunday, so there weren’t many people walking the steel-and-glass-lined streets of Canary Wharf. Those who did stared at Pen’s scars, making Beth wince, but Pen stared fiercely back, which made Beth prouder than anything.

  ‘All right, B. How’s the picture going?’ she asked.

  Beth nodded and shrugged at the same time, universal sign language for Okay, I guess.

  Pen’s face softened. ‘The spider come?’ She stroked the side of Beth’s face with her fingertips. ‘You okay?’

  Another shrug-and-nod combo.

  Pen hugged her tight. ‘That’s backbone, Beth Bradley,’ she whispered into Beth’s ear. ‘Proud of you.’

  They walked slowly around Westferry Circus and into Limehouse. The skyscrapers gave way to brick terraces and concrete blocks of flats. Whenever they found a quiet spot, Beth would crouch and ink in a quick marker picture — a turtle, or a crane. Pen occasionally jotted a line down in the pad she carried, but she didn’t tag. Graffiti had always been more Beth’s thing, and Pen didn’t feel the need to copy her anymore.

  ‘Back to school tomorrow.’

  Beth nodded.

  ‘I wonder what the other girls will make of this.’ Pen traced her fingers over her face. She started to say something else, then changed her mind. Instead she asked, ‘What about you? Are you coming back tomorrow? I asked at Citzens’ Advice and they said Gorecastle was well out of line for booting you out for what we did. We can get your exclusion lifted.’ They paused at a junction. ‘How about it, B? That hole of a school won’t be the same without you.’

  Beth bit her lip. She’d moved back in with her dad, at least nominally, and it was going okay. She felt safe there now but she still spent most of the time out in the streets. And there were times, especially after rain, when dusk fell and she looked up at the monolithic grey tower blocks, at the sodium light washing against clouds, and felt a pull.

  If you do this, a voice in her memory said, you give up home, give up safety forever.

  Beth didn’t know if a single bed in a two-up, two-down would really be home again.

  ‘Let me know what you decide,’ Pen said, then, ‘You coming?’

  Beth shook her head and pointed at the street ahead. She wanted to stay out in her element a little longer. She smiled at Pen, and jogged off up the road.

  Pen waved goodbye and watched her go. She’d come so close to telling Beth about Dr Salt — the words had been halfway out of her mouth — but then she’d hesitated, because she knew how Beth would react. She’d be stunned and furious, and she’d blame herself.

  Pen wondered at what point in their relationship she’d become the one who protected Beth. As for Salt… Pen still had the clothes she’d been wearing the day he’d… forced himself on her. They were screwed up and tucked under her bed — she’d been too terrified of her mum finding them to put them in the wash. She was grateful for that now. She fished in her pocket for her mobile. She’d found and saved the number for the police station that morning. A tight anxiety balled in her chest. Would they believe her? Even if they did, would they do anything? She hit dial. She had to try.

  And if they didn’t believe her — well, she had a friend who was handy with an iron spear, and that was always comforting to know.

  CHAPTER 57

  Dusk crept in. Beth decided to cut through the park. Wet grass squelched between her toes. The shadows under the trees and by the swings grew longer, wilder. The clouds above the tower blocks darkened until the sky was almost exactly the same hue as the concrete walls and the edges blurred into the sky.

  Beth flexed her fingers. The iron railing-spear was under her bed, and every night, as darkness fell, she wondered if tonight would be the night she would pick it up, scramble through her window and race out over the streets.

  I could bed down in any square inch of London town. Welcome to my parlour.

  The piercing wail of a crying baby snapped her out of her reverie as she approached the park’s west gate and she looked around, but there was no one else there. The sound was coming from the bushes next to the railings that separated the park from the street. A crazy thought flashed into Beth’s head, and she started to run.

  Down in the weeds by the railings, an old limestone statue lay on its side in the long grass. It was roughly hewn, its features eroded by hundreds of years of weather, and initials and tags had been scratched into it. The baby’s cry was bleeding from the pores in the stone.

  Hardly daring to breath, Beth picked up a pebble and struck the statue, not too hard, just a tap, and the stone cracked like eggshell. Beth’s fingers trembled a little as she smoothed away the fragments.

  Inside, the baby lay curled in its womb in the heart of the stone. It opened its screwed-up eyes and pushed an arm out of the hole Beth had made in the stone. Reaching past her it wrapped its pudgy fingers around one of the park railings and instantly ceased crying. The child’s skin was the colour of concrete, and marked in black on the inside of its wrist was a tiny crown made of tower blocks. It looked seriously at Beth, perfectly calm as the stone began to reform around its outstretched arm.

  Beth stared at it for long seconds until the baby jolted her by shrieking again. He sounded hungry. She jumped to her feet and staggered around in circles, trying to remember where the nearest corner shop was. As soon as she’d fed him, she decided, she would go to the graveyard in Stoke Newington. Petris and Ezekiel, they’d know what to do.

  She couldn’t be certain, of course — all Pavement Priests wore the tower block crown. If you were a soldier in the army, you had to wear the mark. But there was something about the skin colour, and the way he was holding that railing…

  What was it Timon had told her? It’s years before we get our memories back…

  But he’d said it: we get our memories back.

  Beth could wait. Her stomach did the kind of backflip she thought she’d never feel again and she broke into a run as the child’s cry followed her out of the park. The way the wind cooled her sweat made her shiver. She felt her chest tighten and she released a silent, joyous shout into the city.

  Above her head, in their cages of the glass, the Sodiumites woke and began to dance.

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  Tom Pollock, The City's son st-1