Bloodtide

by Melvin Burgess

  And one other thing he loved: Odin’s knife. ‘When you have the knife back,’ he’d say. ‘When the knife is in Conor’s throat,’ he’d say, all dreamy and soft. The knife was the bottle this baby never had. Except that he wanted me to have it. Now isn’t that weird? To love something so someone else can have it? I mean, you do that for your kids, not for your parents. That’s the tanks. You can make a man love anything, even a knife. But, funny thing, the more he went on about it, the more I wanted it. It was almost the only thing that seemed to make sense. I began to feel that all this mess was nothing more than a journey Odin’s knife was making back to my belt.

  It was the old routine – big fat pig, full of dripping. But these pigs were different.

  James and Percy Wallace. Heard of them? You should’ve, but you won’t. They were businessmen. Owned a lot of operations in and around London. They’d made themselves useful to Conor in the past and he gave them plenty more operations outside London in the new territory he held. He knew he could rely on them to do a job properly.

  James and Percy were not popular. Well, so what? Nobody expects businessmen to be nice. What you expect businessmen to do is to make a fat profit with a fat slice for Conor, and that’s just what these two did. They ran dirty operations, same as a lot of others, and perhaps the only difference was that these two were richer and dirtier than anyone else. They ran a chemical works in Hackney Marshes, the dyeworks in North Islington, the weapons unit in Kilburn – the one no one knew about until those seven streets collapsed, including a day school, with about three hundred dead.

  The typical Wallace brothers set-up was the sort of place no one wanted to work in because you didn’t live long. Life under Conor was no joke and you could usually find someone who was prepared to do any job, no matter how dangerous it was and no matter how low the wages. But not Wallace brothers’ operations. Their places were manned by slaves from the new territories or people kidnapped off the street. No questions asked.

  I reckon hundreds of people from our days – Val’s days, I mean – had been underground when those streets fell in, and God knows how many Midlanders or central Londoners had died in the dyeworks. Who cared? So long as Conor got his slice, no one dared care. And of course out of town, all the really dirty work Conor left behind was handled by the brothers. They ran ‘private security operations’ (protection), ‘information services’ (torture), ‘personnel management’ (spying and assassination) – that sort of thing. And less obvious ones too. A tyrant like Conor needs a lot of cleaning up afterwards, and who do you suppose it was dealt with the bodies? Genocide makes a big mess. What about when Conor decided to make an example of Ipswich? Where do you think those hundreds and thousands of bodies went? You have a think about it next time you buy a packet of bone meal from the corner shop.

  So, big fat pigs. There were none bigger or fatter or piggier than these two. Now, I don’t fool myself. Ridding the world of the likes of James and Percy wasn’t going to change anything; there’s always plenty more to pop up from whatever stinking pit they come from. But it made me feel better, and then again, news got out. People got to hear that the real dirt of this world had met the fate they deserved, and I like to think I gave a little satisfaction by doing it.

  You’d’ve thought it was the sort of thing to please the dear pig, but none of it.

  ‘You oughta be out there wi our Dag, you be a general, not risking yer life for a coupla old geezers.’

  Thanks, but no thanks. I prefer to work on me own.

  Styr was up for it. Yeah, Styr was up for anything. I’d have to say, you couldn’t call Styr a force for good in this old world, but him and me, we were just about unbeatable when you put us together.

  These two guys were big stars for Conor and they could have had a place in the Estate if they wanted, ten times over. No one really knew why they didn’t. It was safe there, the security was watertight, no one ever even coughed without security knowing about it. And these two needed security; they had a lot of enemies. But they preferred to live on the outside.

  They spent most of their time in a huge mansion in Kentish Town. Bloody great place, built more like a safe than a fortress. Steel walls – honest to God, I’ve seen it. No one got in or out of there, not even me and Styr. And so they got away with it year after year after year.

  It was Cherry, as always, who brought us the news. She was getting on by this time, Cherry. It was only a couple of years after I’d taken Styr on, but she’d aged eight years or more. I’d put her about fifty. I was twenty-four. She was still good looking, but not really fanciable as far as I was concerned. The time was, I could have fallen for Cherry and maybe she could have fallen for me. We had an affair for a few years, on and off, at Signy’s command probably. I sometimes wonder if I have any relations out there, running around living off mice. What a thought! It makes you a lot nicer to cats, I can tell you. It faded out shortly after Styr came on the scene. I’ve got a couple of catty girls I see from time to time – not too much animal, but I like a bit of fur and a nice purr, although they do tend to have rough tongues.

  Cherry was a bit like an aunt to me these days. Tell the truth, the way she looked at me sometimes I think she must’ve felt about me the way I used to feel about her. Getting old so fast couldn’t be much fun for her. At this rate she couldn’t really have much more than five years or so left. Anyway, that’s getting off the point. The thing is, there was a chance at the Wallace brothers. Like I say, they spent their time locked in that stainless steel castle in Kentish Town. We knew they came out, but when? I was always on at her about it, and finally she came up with the goods.

  She had all the info – when they’d be arriving, the address of the house, even down to the security details for the evening. It was a godsend. Even so, it wasn’t gonna be easy. They were well guarded, they had vehicles, they had fire power – big fire power. It was pretty obvious it was a job for more than two, but my usual helpers weren’t so keen on this one. For a start, I couldn’t promise them any loot. For another, it was just too dangerous for the likes of my mates Fumble and Skunk, and maybe it was a bit out of their depth. So, in the end, I let Styr convince me that we should let Dag help us out.

  Yeah, well. I want clear blue water between me and the resistance movement. Like I say, it’s not that I don’t sympathise, but I’ve had enough of that sort of shit to last me several lifetimes. It’s true that a few of my targets these last few years have been political, which has made me popular with the resistance. I don’t mind my fat pigs being political targets, or maybe even military ones, so long as there’s some decent reward in it for me. I don’t think for one second it’ll do any real good, except that it keeps people’s spirits up, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But this was the first time I’d worked together with the soldiers, and I didn’t like it.

  It was the same guy Melanie had around that time, in Muswell Hill. Same old crap, reeling off the list of military targets me and Styr had polished off, and begging me to join up.

  ‘It’s not in me,’ I told him.

  He slapped his head as if I was being stupid. ‘Half of Conor’s top generals under your belt and it’s not in you!’ he howled. Meanwhile, old Melanie was prowling up and down honking and grunting.

  ‘When’m you gonna see sense, my Sigs?’ she moaned.

  ‘Dag Aggerman…’ began the emissary, but I’d had enough. I didn’t want to know how great Aggerman thought I was. I stuck my gristle in his face and snarled, ‘Do you wanna help me take out the Wallace brothers or what?’ He shrugged and looked all sulky, but he knew better than to cross me, so we got down to details. Hard bargaining, but we got about twenty men and a bit of serious artillery. It was enough for a surprise attack.

  Cherry did us proud, but even so we weren’t entirely sure of how many men we were up against. Knowing the Wallace brothers there could have been any number hiding around or riding about, but in the end it looked as though they were relying on secrecy because there weren
’t that many after all. Dag’s men were all just that – men. I did the commander bit, talked hard, clapped them on the shoulder, made ’em feel like I’d known ’em all my life. Val taught me how to do that. We had a couple of practice runs at night around Hackney before we did the real thing. Aggerman had them well trained, despite all the whingeing about human troops. We had half our force approaching underground through the drains, and the rest of us attacking simultaneously from front and back.

  We didn’t have long. There were only a handful of blokes guarding the house, but it was a fair bet there’d be a few more arriving double-quick from the barracks in Station Road. It was easy to start with. Their men were good, but they were outnumbered and we really caught them on the hop. Half of ’em were round the table playing cards when we came in through every window in the house – BANG! We cleared the hall and front room, and Styr and me were up the stairs before you could cough, leaving the rest of them to finish off the guard and hold off any help from outside.

  We found ’em still in their beds: two skinny, grey old geezers in a pair of neat single beds tucked up against the wall with a couple of little oil lamps on as if they were scared of the dark. And you know what? They were still asleep. We’d unleashed a holocaust, men were dying and the whole place was being smashed to shreds, and there they were, on top of the volcano, sleeping soundly.

  We stood looking at them. They were weird looking people, like the ghosts of children, lying all peaceful in their little bedroom. You could hardly believe they’d killed maybe a million people between them.

  ‘What is it with them?’ I demanded. Styr frowned and shrugged. I was put off… killing two sleeping men? But he had no qualms. He did it with his knife, first one, then the other, and wiped the blade calmly on the duvet cover.

  ‘That was what we came here for,’ he said.

  Then it was time to get out, quick. We’d made enough noise to wake the dead. I was about to leg it when I spotted something very strange hanging up on the wall by their beds.

  It was a funny little room. Neat wallpaper covered in little pink flowers, chest of drawers. Small wardrobe, a little book shelf. Very cosy, really. But these two things hanging by the bed were out of place. I thought at first they were dressing gowns with hoods. Grey, furry dressing gowns. But they were too hairy. Too ugly. Then I saw the ears, and I went and took one off the hook.

  It was a wolfskin. It’d been hanging on the peg by the tip of the snout, and the heads were what I’d taken for hoods. I held it out over my arms and glanced at Styr. He reached out and stroked the coarse, thick fur.

  Outside there was trouble on its way. I could hear cars revving up further down the street. Cars meant weapons. We had to move.

  Styr grinned. He shook the other skin over his arm like a tailor showing off a bolt of cloth. ‘Werewolves. They were werewolves.’

  ‘Are there such things?’

  ‘Them sleeping through all this.’ He shook the skin again and nodded at the two dead men. They looked no different dead from when they were only sleeping. ‘They’re not real, you see,’ he said. ‘They’re only real when they wear these.’

  I thought, how do you know? But I just said, ‘Come on…’ I was in a hurry to get out.

  Styr grinned at me, a kind of leer, and he said, ‘Let’s try ’em on.’

  I stopped. Why would a man want to be a wolf ?

  ‘Try them on… come on,’ he repeated.

  ‘Don’t be stupid. What for?’

  ‘Are you scared?’

  ‘Why should I be?’ I was scared, of course. I always was, every time we did a job. But I don’t think Styr knew what the word meant.

  ‘Come on, Siggy. Try it on for size…’

  I knew better of course. But, let’s face it. I was tempted. Wouldn’t you want to know what it’s like? And the other thing, since I’m being honest – I should have known sense, but he was my son and he was taunting me with cowardice. My blood was still hot from the killing. Outside the cars were drawing up. I kidded myself it would just be a good way to slip past the troops. I nodded and grinned a leery grin back at him. I slipped the hood over my head. He did the same.

  The first thing was – it hurt. It hurt so bad! A pain like molten metal poured over me. I stiffened, I screamed, and as I screamed I fell down on all fours and my scream became a howl…

  I come from a proud family, but look at my life. My brothers fed to a pig, my father slaughtered and his skeleton hung from the gateway of our enemies. My sister is a concubine and I’ve been brought so low that it’s an old pig-woman with spit on her lips who has to rescue me. I’ve slept with my own sister, though I swear to all the gods, I never knew who it was at the time. These things I couldn’t help but the most shameful thing I did to myself when I put that wolfskin over my head. It began with shame, because I only put it on because Styr taunted me into doing it. A father has to show his sons how to be brave, but he also has to show them the difference between bravery and foolishness. Styr was a poor learner at that lesson, but to let his ignorance become my sin, that was unforgivable. And it ended… well, you’ll see.

  It was like a drug. I don’t remember much. It was like the Berserker troops, the ones who dedicate their lives to Odin before a battle and take hallucinogenic drugs to drive them mad. I remember leaping out of the window and coming down among the gangmen in the street. Styr was coming down too, out of the other window in the bedroom. First floor – should have broken our legs to bits. At the back of my mind – yeah, I still had a little mind at that point, with the skin fresh on me – there was the thought that this was it, I was bound to die. All those guys, and we were jumping right into the middle of them. It was mad, I couldn’t understand what drove us so crazy that we dived down straight into the gunfire. Those men were armed with automatic weapons, some of them had armour-piercing cannons mounted on the roofs of their vehicles. There was a stream of gunfire headed straight at me; I could see the tracers coming my way.

  As soon as I hit the ground I discovered my size. With all four feet on the ground I could stare straight over the top of a parked car. My mouth felt like a bomb ready to go off. I was in an incredible rage. I fell in among a group of gangmen and tore at them. I could hear Styr’s howl close at hand. Then as I turned into a stream of gunfire, I realised I was immune. The bullets just grazed over me. Someone released a small shell; it burst against my side like a warm flower and I knew in that second that nothing could stop us. I howled like a demon; Styr howled too, in triumph, and we turned on our attackers. Our strength was another drug. We could do anything. We didn’t just tear the gangmen to pieces, we tore their vehicles to pieces. We even twisted their weapons between our teeth.

  I don’t know which god or devil made those wolfskins. They were evil things, because when we’d finished with the gangmen, we turned on our own people. And when they were finished, we headed off away, looking for still more blood.

  I remember snatches. The wolf had taken over by this time, but there were moments when I was lucid. Not that it stopped me. I was an observer of my own jaws. How they tore the limbs from a man. How they seized a child and severed it at the waist. Yes, yes – children. The monster had no mercy. Bits like that I remember, but most of it I found out afterwards. The story amongst Londoners was that two monsters from the halfman lands escaped into the city. They – we – left a swathe of death and destruction right into London as far as King’s Cross. People torn to pieces, animals torn to pieces. The good, the bad, the rich, the poor. Most of it was in the slums, though. Now, why should that be? Why should creatures loving only blood want to kill the poor first? All I can think is, that there’s more blood in the slums; the people are packed closer together.

  After, when I was a man again, I went to visit the homes of the killed and maimed. I saw the houses ripped to pieces, the teethmarks in the brickwork, the body parts littering the ground. The endless procession of shocked faces. I went there as a spectator. I couldn’t believe that the fragments of m
emory were real; I wanted them to be dreams. I pretended to be a benefactor to the victims. I gave money; I was generous. But I’m a Volson. Before this I never had to feel guilty. Now when I look at myself in the mirror I see that I lost something holy inside when I put that skin over my head, all because of my foolish son.

  Enough of this talk about killing. The whole world’s full of blood, I’m sick of it. But there’s more to tell about that night.

  When I came to myself I was in the halfman lands. The light was colouring the sky. I was still a wolf in form but inside I was turning back into a man. I found myself growling low in my throat, crouched on all fours. I seemed to have shrunk. My mouth was thick with the taste of blood. I had wounds on my head and shoulders.

  The red mist of the death-rage cleared away from my eyes, the wolfskin fell away as the light brightened the air. When the skin lay under me and I was myself, I saw what it was I was chewing. It was a wolf: Styr. It took a while for me to realise.

  I’d killed my own son.

  In the end we’d turned on each other. I don’t remember the fight, but it must have been something to behold. We were in among the derelict remains of a row of shops. The earth was torn up by our struggle, the masonry knocked down, the brickwork smashed to pieces. One of the shops had once sold electrical goods, and we’d scattered the rusted hulks and innards of old washing machines, fridges and dishwashers all around. Styr lay over a heap of crushed metal, still a wolf. His throat was missing.

  *

  Nearby I could hear running water and I crawled off to wash my mouth in the stream. I drank, splashed water on my face, stared at the early morning light flickering on the running stream. I thought to myself, is this real? I thought, will I really have to live with this? Because I couldn’t see how I could do it.

  As I came back to him the sun was coming up over the broken buildings, lighting up the world of no-one’s land – rusted cars, fallen brickwork, scattered joists, weeds and small trees breaking up the roads and pavements. I was human. I lay down by his side and began to cry.