The Shadow of the Soul: The Dog-Faced Gods Book Two

by Sarah Pinborough

  There gap between the wall of her building and the one next to it was barely three feet wide, giving her a limited view of the street either side. How closely were they watching her? It was more likely that Fletcher had placed the car so obviously in order to warn her off going out, and was instead monitoring her mobile and landline phones. Her sister had just died, after all, and despite his suspicions about what she had or hadn’t seen on the platform of the tube station, she was the one who had chased the fat man down while Special Branch had been bumbling around like something out of a silent black and white film.

  Black and white. That meant something. Hadn’t she seen only in black and white for a moment earlier in the day? It had felt good; she knew that. There had been something soothing in that fleeting absence of colour. Along the wall, perhaps a metre to her left, a drainpipe ran the length of the building. Although paint-chipped and tatty, the brackets holding it at regular intervals to the bricks looked firmly screwed in, the metal tight against the wall. She hoped she was right.

  The window only opened halfway, but it was enough. Bending backwards, she managed to slide her slim torso out and then pulled upward against the glass, one hand hooked round the frame and her stomach muscles holding her in place. When she felt secure, she eased one long leg out and shuffled herself to the edge of the window. She stretched along the outside wall and reached for the pipe. It was greasy under her touch. She sighed and then took a deep breath, swung herself out and grabbed for the pipe. She didn’t look down – not because she was afraid of heights, but because there was no point. She knew what was down there: uneven, hard concrete. Evaluating a landing didn’t take much thought – if she fell, there would be broken bones, at the very least.

  With the precision of a cat she pressed her free foot into a gap between the bricks, curling her toes up to get some form of hold on the filler and then, with every muscle in her body taut, she pulled her other leg out of the window and instantly swung them both sideways. Just at the point her hand had to let go of the window, her feet found purchase on the pipe and she used the momentum to carry the rest of her torso over.

  She shimmied quickly to the ground, and stood panting against the wall for a moment. Her top had ridden up and her stomach had grazed against the bricks. Her ribs ached. It had been a long time since she’d done something like that, and no amount of jogging and yoga could prepare your body for the completely unusual. She trotted to the back of the building, her muscles recovering as she went. She scanned the road. It was quiet, and there was no sign of any suspicious vehicle. With her head down, she stayed close to the shadows of the wall and walked in the other direction, away from her flat. When she reached the end of the street she peered backwards. As far as she could tell, no one was following her. The night was still.

  Once clear of her own immediate vicinity, she broke into a steady jog, nothing fast enough to draw suspicion from any passing police car, but setting a good enough pace to draw out anyone who might have been tailing behind. Her footsteps were not matched, but echoed lonely in the darkness and soon she eased into her stride, running as much for pleasure as purpose.

  After three miles she stopped at a phone booth. Her breathing was even and her muscles were loose. She felt good as she inserted some coins and then tapped the number from her arm into the pad. It rang twice before a voice, sounding smooth and exotic, answered.

  ‘Asher Red.’

  ‘Abigail Porter,’ she replied.

  ‘Good. I’ve been expecting your call. Now listen carefully …’

  Abigail could hear the pleasure in the man’s voice as he spoke, and it warmed her.

  The boy on the bed had finally stopped crying, although, to be fair, it hadn’t taken much to make him start. Mr Craven didn’t really mind. It could be more fun that way, if he was in the right mood. The bed was vast and the boy looked tiny in it. Mr Craven wasn’t sure how old he was; somewhere above six and below nine would be his experienced guess, and unlike the children he’d become used to, this one was pale and blond with a layer of puppy fat covering his small bones. It was a welcome change.

  Mr Craven leaned back in the low regency chair in the corner of the large bedroom as he finished his thin Cartier cigarette, letting his silk dressing gown fall open. Although the boy’s tear-stained face was looking in his direction, he showed no sign of fear at Mr Craven’s naked body, even after all the damage it had inflicted on his own damaged flesh. This was nothing surprising. They all retreated into themselves at some point, as if what was happening to their body was elsewhere. Children, Mr Craven had discovered over the long years, had an interesting capacity for that. Perhaps it was because they had yet to doubt their own immortality and realise just how important this fresh new body was to them. They soon learned under Mr Craven’s, tutelage, though. He made very sure of that.

  The boy’s skin was bright pink in patches, and as he looked at the small stain of blood on the Egyptian cotton sheet from where the child’s anus had torn, Mr Craven became aroused again. Recovery time was not something he’d ever needed. Perhaps he’d use a knife on this one. That would bring the life back into his piggy eyes. It was feasible. He was a nothing, this boy, a runaway in a care home, ironically having run away from a situation like this. It could always be reported that he’d run away again. The manager of the care home wouldn’t mind. Any doubts she’dhadwere dispelled when he showed her everything he truly was – and on top of that, she’d been paid well. As he looked at the silent boy again, his thoughts fixated on the knife. Mutilation wasn’t something he indulged in too often – he wasn’t cruel – but he was feeling over-stressed, and in need of some release. Too much was changing, and it was starting to look like they had come here under a false promise. He smiled. He wanted to score the boy’s buttocks and hear him scream as he tried to wriggle away. He wanted to—

  The doorbell echoed through the huge apartment and Mr Craven sighed, his delicious train of thought broken. He didn’t have to wonder who it was; no one came up here apart from the Network or their lackeys. It was two a.m. What could be so important now?

  He tied his dressing gown around his waist and left the room, locking the door behind him. The boy looked broken, but you couldn’t be too careful. There were no staff working that night, at his own request. Of course they would turn a blind eye and do what they were told, but in recent times he’d preferred to keep his hobbies private.

  A man in an expensively tailored suit stood on the other side of the heavy wooden door. Mr Craven glared at him.

  ‘Don’t tell me – another meeting? If it’s to tell me Monmir’s dead, then that’s hardly news.’

  The besuited man didn’t speak and Mr Craven gritted his teeth and pressed his thin lips together so that they almost disappeared completely and fought the urge to beat him or tear him limb from limb. He still had the strength – he wasn’t weakening – but he also knew that Mr Bright wouldn’t take that kindly. This man in front of him might not know exactly who he was working for, but he was still Mr Bright’s man. Not that Mr Craven really cared what Mr Bright thought, but for now he needed to play the game.

  ‘Let’s go then.’

  There was the slightest flicker of surprise in the man’s eyes. ‘Aren’t you going to dress?’

  Mr Craven looked down. ‘Am I naked?’ His eyes were hard.

  The man didn’t say any more.

  Mr Craven looked back into the apartment. There was never any telling how long a meeting could go on for, and if he was still in the mood, he could always arrange for another.

  ‘There’s something in the bedroom that needs taking back to where it belongs.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps clean it up first.’

  The man registered no surprise, and as Mr Craven followed him out, his irritation rose. It appeared that everyone was aware that he continued the practices of his youth, even the bloody lackeys. Were there no secrets? Was nothing sacred?

  Mr Bellew and Mr Dublin were already there when Mr Craven arrived. His bare
feet slapped against the marble floor and the sound echoed slightly against the curved walls and ceiling of the old tunnel.

  ‘Just the four of us again?’ he asked. ‘How sweet.’

  ‘Glad you made an effort.’ Mr Dublin was, as ever, impeccably but casually dressed, the tan of his trousers and the off-cream of his soft shirt making him almost a ghost under his ash-blond hair.

  ‘Someone else is in there with him,’ Mr Bellew said. He looked Mr Craven up and down and didn’t disguise his distaste.

  ‘So we’ve been left outside to wait?’ Mr Craven’s lips tightened as he sneered, ‘Is Mr Bright the First or have I missed something?’

  ‘Just because your fun has clearly been interrupted, there’s no need to throw your toys out of your pram.’ Mr Bellew leaned against one of the pillars in front of the carved double doors, but he kept his eyes on Mr Craven. None of the three sat down on any of the variety of sofas and wing-back chairs in the atrium.

  ‘It’s not like you to take Mr Bright’s side,’ Mr Craven said.

  ‘Oh, both of you, please just be quiet. This bickering is sounding like the old days.’ Mr Dublin looked at Mr Craven. ‘We’ve only just arrived ourselves; he doesn’t even know we’re here. We thought we might as well wait for you. So now that we’re all here, gentlemen, shall we go in?’

  As they took their respective places at the compass points of the table, a small man made the back of the room untidy as he paced up and down, worrying at his hands.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ Mr Craven directed the question at Mr Bright. ‘He’s not one of the Inner Cohort.’

  ‘We appear to have a problem.’ Mr Bright poured four brandies as he spoke. He didn’t offer a drink to the worried man at the back. He clicked a silver remote control and a canvas hanging behind him slid up the wall to reveal a large flat-screen monitor.

  ‘These are some of the images that Special Branch and the ATD discovered while looking through CCTV footage of the London bombs.’ Pictures flashed across the screen. Mr Bright clicked again. ‘And these are from the Moscow bombs.’

  The men around the table stared at the screen. After a few moments, Mr Bright turned it off.

  ‘I would say our problem is obvious.’ He sat down, resting his hands on the table.

  ‘But that’s—’ Mr Craven looked over at the chubby, pacing man who had moved further towards the corner of the large room. ‘How did this happen, Mr DeVore?’ There was a sharp accusation in the question. ‘How did it get out?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ The man called Mr DeVore visibly shivered. ‘I don’t understand it.’

  ‘How it got out is almost irrelevant,’ Mr Bellew cut in. ‘What is it doing?’

  ‘And stop trembling like that.’ Mr Dublin looked at DeVore. ‘We’re better than that kind of fear. You’re shaming yourself. Pull yourself together and sit down.’

  DeVore did as he was told, taking his own regular seat between the south and west points of the table, with Mr Bellew at the south and Mr Dublin at the east. He sank into the chair.

  ‘How could you not have known it was gone?’ Mr Craven asked.

  DeVore’s forehead shone with sweat despite the coolness of the room.

  ‘To be fair,’ Mr Bright answered in his place, ‘being in several places at once is what they do. We know this. We use it all the time. DeVore didn’t realise he didn’t have the real one until the Reflection disappeared this lunchtime. The Interventionist itself died under a tube train at the same time.’

  ‘And that’s when it disappeared from the thought chamber,’ DeVore repeated Mr Bright’s point.

  ‘Don’t you check them?’ Mr Craven wasn’t letting go.

  ‘Yes,’ DeVore answered helplessly, ‘of course we do.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Mr Dublin sighed. ‘I’m missing something. If you check them, how could you not have known it was a Reflection?’

  ‘They’ve developed a new skill,’ Mr Bright said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We all know they’ve been evolving since they came through the walkways with us.’

  ‘Evolving isn’t perhaps a word I’d choose,’ Mr Craven muttered.

  ‘Mainly those changes have worked in our favour.’ Mr Bright ignored the other man and continued, ‘As their other skills have grown, they’ve lost their individual personalities—’

  ‘— and their looks.’

  ‘And they’ve become empty vessels for their abilities. Their reclusive natures make them harmless. The House of Intervention has served us well.’

  ‘But the Reflections they use to see the world have always been insubstantial,’ Mr Dublin’s voice was eternally soft. ‘Like holograms.’

  ‘That would appear to have changed.’

  ‘The Reflections are now solid?’

  ‘That’s why DeVore’s team didn’t realise the one in the Chamber wasn’t real.’

  There was a thoughtful pause before DeVore started babbling, as if to fill it. ‘And I have other responsibilities to take care of. There is the constant stream of data coming from them to check. I have to oversee the analysis and make sure we’re reading them properly. I can’t do everything!’

  ‘So, if all the Reflections are now solid,’ Mr Craven asked, ‘how did you know which was the real one in this case? Surely the Reflection could have been what we saw on that footage?’

  ‘Because of this.’ Mr Bright started the film again. The silent film lasted only a few moments. ‘As this one went under the train, so the one in the House simply disappeared.’

  ‘Where did you get all this footage?’ Mr Bellew asked.

  ‘Luckily, DeVore acted fast.’ Mr Bright’s eyes hardened on Mr Bellew, ignoring the question as if it were a slight on his power. ‘When the Reflection disappeared, he contacted me straight away.’

  ‘Of course he did,’ Mr Craven sneered. ‘Everyone runs to the First’s right-hand man.’

  ‘We now have the body – at least what they could scrape up of it from the tracks. We’ll feed them back some regular results – something anonymous. We need to keep this away from Them as much as possible. Even those who know need to think we have complete control.’

  ‘Why did it go under the track? I don’t see a gunshot.’ Mr Dublin frowned, delicate lines furrowing his perfect skin.

  ‘It was wearing a dummy bomb – I presume to create the impression that it was going to commit an act of terror, like the others. There was no apparent reason for it to take such an extreme measure. The only conclusion I can draw is that this was suicide.’ Mr Bright paused. ‘And a very public one, although for whose benefit I’m not yet sure.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ Mr Bellew said at last. ‘Why would one of them kill itself? If it could create a hard Reflection, why not send that instead? And on top of that, they don’t think – not like us, or even Them, for that matter. They don’t even like being out in the world, otherwise they wouldn’t just sit like vegetables in the House of Intervention.’

  ‘Look at the gums.’ Mr Bright magnified the image. ‘They’re bleeding quite badly. I think it was dying anyway.’

  ‘So death has come to them too?’ Mr Craven’s voice was low.

  ‘Is this your ennui too, Mr Bright?’ Mr Dublin leaned back in his chair.

  ‘I doubt it. Perhaps the centuries spent inside have made the world intolerable to them. Who knows?’ Mr Bright smiled, calmly. ‘What’s happening to them and what’s happening with us is unlikely to be related.’

  ‘We all travelled,’ Mr Dublin said softly.

  ‘But they were never us. They were lower.’

  ‘They were fucking servants, and now they’re fucking freaks,’ Mr Craven exploded. ‘We should have left them behind.’

  ‘I’m surprised by your vehemence,’ Mr Dublin said. ‘I didn’t think you would care one way or another, women having never been to your particular taste.’

  Mr Craven downed his brandy. ‘Well done, Mr Dublin.
You’ve discovered your sense of humour.’

  ‘This is all relatively irrelevant.’ Mr Bright took a careful sip of his own drink. ‘The Interventionist itself isn’t the problem. Perhaps they’re dying. It would be unfortunate, but we could manage without them and their abilities.’

  DeVore opened his mouth to comment, but one look from Mr Bright closed it.

  ‘But this footage confirms the suspicions I aired the last time we met. The Interventionists don’t care about the machinations of this world. I don’t think they even care about us. They have become something of their own – we just tap into that. Someone in the Network – maybe one of us, even – is using them. To create an imbalance, perhaps. Whatever the reason, I can assure you it’s not for the greater good. Wouldn’t you agree, causing devastation in two major cities is hardly to our current benefit?’

  ‘London is your city. Your base,’ Mr Craven said.

  ‘It’s the first city, as well as mine. Perhaps this is an attack on me.’

  ‘You never were short of ego, Mr Bright.’ Mr Dublin’s laughter was shards of diamonds on a mirror. ‘Maybe someone’s tired of following the lead of the puppet rather than the sleeping puppet-master.’

  ‘Then they should bring it to the full Cohort. I have no problem with that. This,’ he said as he pointed back at the screen, ‘I have a problem with.’

  ‘I never thought I’d be the one to say this,’ Mr Bellew started, ‘but this is no time for us four to fight. We led them here, and they’ve let us lead since.’ His dark eyes moved around the table. ‘We have to keep our hold now, or we’re in danger of losing everything.’

  ‘But what about the others?’ Mr Craven turned to DeVore. ‘Is there any way we can tell if they’re Reflections or not? How many others are out?’