by Liz Williams
After a moment, a man appeared. Like the late lamented Number Six, he was middle aged and wearing a dark, expensive suit. He, too, was Chinese. He paused, briefly, to smooth back his hair before stepping through the door of the room. I could hear him moving about. I returned to the door and glanced through. The businessman was bending over the supine figure of the girl; his fingers touching first her throat and then her wrist. I heard him give a brief hiss of satisfaction. He picked up her arm and let it fall again, and it dropped to the side of the bier like a dead weight. The businessman laughed. He began muttering under his breath, and started to unfasten his shirt. I did not even want to think about what he might be about to do and I certainly had no inclination to watch. It was, I thought, high time to get out of here. Once I was well away, I would phone the police. I could hear the urgent rustle of movement from within the room. I was halfway down the corridor when someone screamed.
It was a high, whistling scream like a boiling kettle. I stood paralysed in the middle of the corridor. The scream abruptly stopped. I am sorry to say that at this point, I turned and ran. I reached the main door and stumbled through into the warm dusk. It felt like the freshest air I had ever tasted. And then I saw her. She was crouched by the outside wall, rocking to and fro on her haunches. I could see her eyes glinting in the shadows. She was panting. As I stared she rose and began prowling around the perimeter fence. She looked nothing like the elegant young woman I had first set eyes on in the Azure Dragon. Her face was distorted with fury like a Japanese theatrical mask and her breasts were mottled with something that looked suspiciously like blood. A long tongue lolled out and licked at it. I fled in the opposite direction but I could hear the scrape of her taloned feet against the concrete as she bolted in pursuit. I ran around the side of the building and there was a howl like a banshee from somewhere in front. For a terrified moment I thought she’d come over the roof ahead of me, but then I saw the cage containing the sharkhound. It must have scented the blood that sprayed her body. The animal hurled itself against the bolted mesh of the cage and I saw my chance. I jumped onto the top of the cage and pulled out the bolt at the moment when she sprang. The sharkhound collided with her in mid-air. They both gave a remarkably similar horrible yell and fell to the ground. I could hear them snarling at each other as they rolled over and over, but I was out of the complex and sprinting alongside the harbour wall, just in time to meet the police as they came in through the main gate.
In the end, it was not the police who charged me. They found a diverting scene back at the facility: a girl and an engineered dog with their teeth locked in one another’s throats, and inside, freezer facilities suitable for the storage of meat and a curious, incense-lit tableau, in the middle of which was a thing that the papers described as a husk. I could shed very little light on any of this, beyond telling them about the necrochip, which when found served as some degree of corroboration. The press was rife with speculation; everything from cults to assassination, and I don’t think it was ever satisfactorily resolved. But I have lived in Singapore Three for long enough to know that legends still live on even in the mid-twenty first century. It seems to me that if one was a supernatural creature that needed, say, human sperm to bring one back from the dead, then one would necessarily have a problem obtaining it. Perhaps in these decadent times it is easier for demons to survive than in the cautious ages of the past: six customers is not bad going, after all.
I mentioned that it wasn’t the police who charged me. Instead, it was the corporation who owned the storage facility, via their insurance company. They sued for breaking and entering, plus damage in transit and the loss of a valuable genetically enhanced guard dog. The bill totalled some twenty thousand franchise dollars, and I can’t leave the country until I pay. I have, in these desperate straits, revived the idea of the necrochip. I confess to being startled at its success: there are plenty of people who wouldn’t want to sleep with me living, let alone dead, and I don’t even want to think about the logistics. But I have been advertising for over a month now, and I already have three customers: one woman and two men. I’m not quite sure, yet, whether I’ll be in any position to honour my part of the bargain, but I suppose I’ll have to cross that bridge when I come to it.
Necrochip is taken from the collection A Glass of Shadow.
With an introduction by Tanith Lee
A collection of stories that transports the reader from the icy Mars of Winterstrike to the searing deserts of Kazakhstan; from the exotic streets of Inspector Chen’s Singapore Three to the forgotten waterways and hidden courtyards of Venice. Liz Williams writes science fiction with the rich textures of the very best fantasy, and fantasy with the sensibilities of high-end science fiction. She reveals the world around us in subtly different shades and portrays other realms with a vividness that defies doubt. A Glass of Shadow presents Liz at her best. Nineteen stories personally selected by the author, including two original to the collection; tales that delve into our psyche and investigate the fragility of the human condition, that draw aside the veils of mundane reality to reveal the hidden truths of this world and beyond.
Available now in print and eBook editions.
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Coming soon from NewCon Press:
Nestling in the idyllic Somerset countryside, overlooked by Britain’s most famous Tor, steeped in both myth and history, and host to one of the world’s most popular music festivals, Glastonbury is a village quite unlike any other.
The spiritual and the curious, the enlightened and the strange, the weird and the wonderful: all manner of folk feel drawn to Glastonbury for all manner of reasons. Many find their way into a delightfully quirky treasure trove of a shop run by Trevor Jones and Liz Williams, who now open its door and bid you enter their world. You will be enchanted, you will be amused and amazed, but, most of all, please be welcome…
In 2005, fantasy and SF author extraordinaire Liz Williams took the plunge, moving from her beloved Brighton to Glastonbury to live with her partner, Trevor Jones. Trevor ran a witchcraft shop. Liz’s life would never be the same again…
“When you find yourself on a London platform shouting into your mobile, ‘We haven’t got enough demons! Do you want me to order some more?’ as folk quietly edge away from you – you know you’re running a witchcraft shop.”
Entertaining, enlightening, hilarious and unpredictable
Look for Diary of a Witchcraft Shop autumn 2011
