The Music of Sound

by Ian Jarvis

  ‘Then why isn’t he moving?’ sobbed Ligeia.

  ‘Yeah.’ Watson gave Adler a sarcastic smile. ‘Answer that, Sweetheart.’

  ‘Shut up,’ hissed the Colonel. She noticed Elva signing to Ligeia. ‘And you can stop that. Stop it NOW, you dumb little fucker.’

  Regaining her composure and sweeping back her dark hair, Adler strode to the bar and poured herself a whisky. Why did she kept losing her temper? She was normally icy cool and this behaviour was way out of character. Why was she feeling so furious?

  Rex sucked in air and sat up as consciousness returned.

  ‘Are you okay, mate?’ asked Watson.

  ‘Yeah.’ He gingerly fingered the back of his head. ‘They hit me with something and cracked my skull open.’

  ‘The damage has healed,’ said Quist. ‘Let’s hope no brains spilled out.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Rex, without a trace of irony. ‘I can remember everything.’ He turned to Adler. ‘I can certainly remember this one-eyed lunatic.’

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you to wake,’ said the Colonel. ‘I wouldn’t want to do anything to you without you being fully aware.’ She finished her drink in one gulp and slammed down the glass. ‘What the hell are you doing here? By showing up backstage like that, you upset Ligeia.’

  Rex grunted. ‘I think it was your men kicking the shit out of me that upset her.’

  ‘Do you know how much you’ve just cost me by ruining the concert? Ligeia was too distressed to go back on and nothing I say will soothe her. I didn’t expect to see you again. I gave instructions to my Sergeant, but evidently he didn’t comply. He isn’t answering his phone either. Would you know anything about that?’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ said Rex, climbing onto his knees on the carpet. ‘If the phone was in his pocket, it’ll be inside the tiger now.’

  Adler smiled tightly. ‘Gruner was my best man.’

  ‘Oh, by the way,’ added Rex. ‘Your pet psychopaths Laurel and Hardy won’t be moving any more pianos.’

  ‘Is that so?’ She seethed silently for several seconds. ‘So some of my team now have to stay behind and remove the evidence from Charlington Hall. I really did not need this.’

  ‘The news has gone viral,’ said Guevara, checking his digital tablet. ‘The social media sites are talking about how Ligeia’s singing changed and how awful her voice sounded before she rushed off.’

  ‘This can be remedied once we reach the States,’ said Adler. ‘Bad press surrounding one concert won’t matter when the album goes on sale and her American tour begins...’

  ‘I don’t want to sing for you again,’ stammered Ligeia, tears pouring down her face. ‘Your friends hurt Elva and Rex. Elva told me you hurt her earlier too. You tried to break her arm and you lied to me about it. I don’t like you anymore.’

  Adler stared at the girl’s cuddling each other on the couch and realised she wouldn’t be able to placate her tonight and certainly not with Elva around. After this debacle, it would take time and huge amounts of charm to render Ligeia submissive and cooperative again. She needed to get her safely onto the American flight, but first she had to finish up here and it no longer mattered if she upset the stupid bitch further. The Colonel took a pistol from one of her men and walked towards Quist.

  ‘So the silver bullets didn’t kill you?’ she said. ‘Let’s try again, but this time we’ll see if one in the brain works.’

  ‘Don’t you dare hurt him,’ shouted Ligeia, jumping to her feet. She snatched Adler’s arm and took a deep breath.

  ‘No you don’t.’ Adler swiped the gun across the girl’s jaw, stunning her. She smirked as Ligeia collapsed on the carpet and turned again to Quist. ‘Thank you for warning me about her dangerous abilities - how she’s able to use a harmful voice when angry. It’s going to be difficult to sweet-talk her around after all this, but I’ll drug her and deal with that problem when she wakes in Miami.’

  Elva stared at her unconscious friend and trembled with fury. Quist stiffened as she stood up from the couch and signed to Watson.

  The teenager turned to Rex. ‘Elva says she’s sorry about earlier, but she couldn’t help when they were hurting you below the stage because the audience might have heard her.’

  ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’ snarled Adler.

  ‘She says there’s no audience here now,’ continued Watson, glancing uneasily at Quist. ‘She asked me if I still have that wax from the chapel.’

  The detective gazed at Elva, his colour draining. ‘Askari?’

  She nodded, furious.

  ‘I’ll ask again,’ said Adler. ‘What the fuck is she talking about?’

  ‘The wax,’ whispered Quist, to his assistant. ‘Now.’

  The suspicious guards pointed their guns as the youth reached into his pocket and stuffed the black beeswax deep in his ears.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ The Colonel raised her pistol too. ‘Don’t move.’

  Elva took a deep breath and Quist clapped his hands over Watson’s ears a second before she screamed. Light bulbs burst and glasses shattered behind the bar, but the Green Room damage bill was the least of Adler’s problems. The Colonel and her men convulsed as if electrified and crumpled to the floor twitching with blood pouring from ears, eyes and noses. Roylott rolled off the couch dead and Guevara’s right ear exploded, his brains splattering Ligeia’s dress.

  The scream ended and silence descended.

  ‘I should have guessed earlier,’ whispered Quist. He tore his eyes from the horror to gaze warily at Elva. ‘You’re Askari.’

  Elva nodded. Still fuming with anger, she knelt over Ligeia, cuddling her as she awoke from Adler’s blow.

  ‘What the fuck was that?’ stammered Rex, gaping at the corpses. ‘She’s what?’

  ‘Askari,’ said Quist, examining Watson. He was relieved to find him unconscious and not dead. ‘You’ll know her more familiar name. Elva is a Banshee.’

  Chapter 37

  Watson tried to stand and stumbled drunkenly against the cocktail bar. He felt someone grab his shoulders to steady him and saw it was Quist. The detective’s lips seemed to be moving, but he couldn’t hear the words.

  ‘Remove the wax,’ shouted Quist. ‘It might help.’

  Clutching the counter to balance himself, the dazed teenager cleaned out his ears and looked around the Green Room as his blurred vision returned. ‘What the...’ he mouthed silently.

  Watson was aware of the rock bands who had performed at the O2 over the years. He guessed this VIP lounge must have played host to some fairly messy scenes involving booze, coke and semen, but he doubted it had ever witnessed this kind of devastation. Doctor Roylott, Shane Guevara and Adler’s mercenaries were all dead. Their twitching bodies littered the carpet around the bar, pools of urine forming beneath them and their ears oozing blood and brain matter. He turned to see the Colonel’s corpse slumped against one of the couches, blood running from the corner of her single glazed eye like a grisly teardrop.

  ‘I must have blacked out,’ stammered Watson. The last time he’d experienced a ringing in the ears like this was following a heavy metal concert when he’d been stupid enough to stand in front of the speaker tower. ‘What is this? What the fuck happened here?’

  ‘Elva screamed,’ said Quist, grimly. ‘She’s a creature very similar to Ligeia. Mythology refers to her kind as Banshees.’

  ‘Sorry, but I seem to have a fire alarm going off in both ears. Maybe I didn’t hear you right, but it sounded like...’

  ‘A Banshee.’ Quist gestured to the dead mercenaries. ‘Her voice killed them.’

  ‘Too right it did,’ muttered Rex, pouring himself a whisky behind the bar and downing it.

  ‘I don’t like to see things like this,’ said Ligeia, trembling. She gazed at the bodies wi
th wide eyes, her voice quavering. ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘I don’t think they liked it either,’ said Rex, gulping down a second drink.

  ‘Come this way.’ Quist took her arm, leading her around the other side of the bar and out of sight of the carnage. ‘You don’t need to look at it.’

  Watson and Elva followed, the latter signing.

  ‘She says she had to do it,’ translated the youth. ‘We were about to be murdered and she couldn’t let that happen. When the Colonel hit Ligeia, she lost her temper and stopped them.’

  ‘She certainly did.’ Quist smiled tightly at Elva. ‘I find it difficult to condone killing, but those people were killers themselves and they left you with no other option. Thank you for your intervention and for warning Watson to use the wax.’

  ‘This is all so confusing,’ said Ligeia, staring in horror as Roylott’s brains ran down her silver dress and onto her dusky legs. ‘I don’t understand everything that happened, but I don’t like this blood. I have to clean myself and change my clothes.’

  They watched her leave for the changing room and the detective gave Elva’s shoulder a gentle squeeze.

  ‘In a way, the two of you are related, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘She’s Lamarai and you’re Askari. A Siren has two voices - the one that enchants and the one that harms - but the Askari are limited to just one. That’s why you never speak. Your voice is highly dangerous to humans and your Banshee scream is lethal.’

  She nodded glumly and turned to Watson.

  ‘She says you’re right,’ said the teenager, translating as she signed. ‘She loves Ligeia and sees her as a sister. She thought the Colonel was nice, but today she saw her for the bad person she really was. Ligeia had always been happy and she likes to see her happy. She went along with the way they exploited her, but that all changed today and she couldn’t allow us to be harmed.’

  ‘Did you know Elva was a Banshee?’ asked Rex.

  ‘I suspected something, as I mentioned on the boat, but I wasn’t sure. I could see the close bond and how alike the girls were and I deduced she was similar to Ligeia. I read about the Askari on the Colonel’s computer and Elva’s lack of voice hinted that she might be one of these creatures. She confirmed it just before she screamed.’

  ‘Well, the wax did the trick,’ said Watson, rubbing his ringing ears. ‘Cheers, Guv.’

  Quist nodded. ‘Adler’s team used those audio implants to combat Ligeia’s enchantment, but they were useless against a Banshee scream. Not only does beeswax safeguard the hearing in the normal sense, but it appears to have inherent supernatural properties which protect against such creatures. It worked in the classics like Ulysses. Apparently the ancients knew these things.’

  Elva nodded and signed.

  ‘That’s right,’ translated Watson. ‘She remembered you giving me the wax and she knew her voice would only stun me if I used it. Adler said this room was soundproof, so her scream wouldn’t hurt anyone outside.’

  Quist smiled at Elva. ‘When you met me, you could sense I was like Rex. You knew your voice wouldn’t affect supernatural beings like Ligeia, Rex and myself, but everyone else within earshot would be...’

  ‘Er...’ Rex narrowed his eyes.

  ‘Yes?’ asked Quist, noticing his guilty expression.

  ‘I think you ought to know...’ He gulped. ‘I er... I bit the Colonel earlier today. She forced me to do it.’

  ‘Ah.’ Closing his eyes, the detective ran a weary hand over his face. ‘You might have said.’

  ‘Shit,’ whispered Watson.

  ‘I was going to tell you, but the time was never right.’

  Quist ran around the cocktail bar to the sprawling bodies. ‘Damn!’ he hissed, seeing that the Colonel’s corpse had vanished. ‘This way, quickly.’

  Rex, Watson and Elva followed as he raced into the changing room, but it was too late. Ligeia was gone and the fire exit door stood ajar.

  ‘Wonderful,’ drawled Watson. ‘You’re telling me that crazy cow is a werewolf and she’s out there somewhere on the full moon?’

  ***

  Quist and Elva ran out of the London Dome with Rex and Watson following close behind. The girl was frantic and the detective held her wrist to prevent her running away to look for her friend.

  ‘It’s alright,’ he said, smiling reassuringly. ‘Trust me. We’ll find her.’

  Rex arrived at the riverbank fence, looking across the black water from North Greenwich to the sparkling lights of the buildings a kilometre away.

  ‘She has to be taking Ligeia to the London City Airport,’ said Quist. ‘The concert was supposed to end at eleven-thirty and Adler’s jet is there ready for the flight to America. How far is it?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Rex. ‘Around three-thousand miles.’

  ‘Not to America,’ said Quist, as patiently as possible. ‘How far is the airport?’

  ‘It’s on the other side of the Thames.’ Rex pointed to a plane taking off to the east, its navigation lights winking as it soared overhead. ‘Look, the airport is just past the ExCel Exhibition Centre over there.’

  ‘How’s she going to get across the river?’ asked Watson, looking for bridges.

  ‘She needs to go under the Thames through the Blackwall Tunnel,’ said Rex. ‘She must have cars here to transport her team. If we can find where they’re parked, we might find Ligeia.’

  Quist looked up at the red lights that dangled across the sky like a gigantic string of Christmas decorations. An illuminated pylon towered above the water to his right and another stood on the opposite riverbank. A cable stretched between them, over three-hundred feet in the air, with dozens of spherical passenger gondolas slowly crossing from Greenwich to the Royal Victoria Dock and the ExCel centre on the distant quay. The red aircraft warning lights were fitted above the cars, leaving the interiors in darkness, but squinting, the detective’s enhanced eyesight made out a familiar female face peering down from one of them.

  ‘Not under the Thames,’ snapped Quist. ‘Over it. There she is.’

  Elva saw Ligeia too. She jumped up and down frenziedly, unsure of what to do.

  ‘They’ve taken the Air Line,’ said Rex.

  Quist spotted the Air Line cable car station across the car park to his right. ‘Rex, come with me,’ he said, thrusting a handful of cash into his assistant’s hand. ‘Watson, you need to look after Elva. Use this money to get a taxi and go with her through the tunnel to the airport. We’ll meet you there.’

  ‘Er, okay, Guv.’ The teenager took the girl’s hand and glanced uneasily at her. ‘Let’s just hope she doesn’t stub her toe and accidentally cry out, eh?’

  Chapter 38

  Quist and Rex ran into the Air Line boarding station, the detective paying for two tickets at the desk and racing up the stairs. Resembling glass bubbles, the futuristic cable cars could seat ten passengers, but they found an empty one and jumped in. The twin doors closed automatically as it reached the open end of the building, the gondola swaying gently as it floated out and began its steep ascent to the first cable support pylon.

  ‘How far in front do you suppose they are?’ asked Rex, anxiously. He peered up at the line of thirty-six cars that stretched for almost a mile across the night sky ahead. ‘Can you tell which one Adler is in?’

  ‘No,’ said Quist, squinting at the red roof lights. ‘When I first spotted Ligeia at the window, their car was rising to the first pylon like this. That means they must be quite a way across the river by now.’ He turned to gaze thoughtfully at Rex. ‘Now that we have the time, I have to ask - why on earth did you bite her?’

  Rex cringed at the reminder. ‘It all happened so fast,’ he sighed. ‘She was twisting Elva’s arm. She was going to break it if I didn’t do as she said and she didn’t give me time to think. It wasn’t my fault. I know
it probably wasn’t a wise move, but we don’t know for certain that the bite worked.’

  ‘The way Adler survived the Banshee scream would suggest it worked admirably.’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ shouted Rex, anger rising. ‘She was torturing that girl and I wasn’t thinking straight.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Quist, soothingly. ‘Listen, you have to calm down and...’

  ‘I don’t have to do anything.’ The gondola shuddered and Rex jumped to his feet. ‘What the hell was that?’

  ‘We just crossed over the first pylon tower which made the cable shake slightly. Now will you please sit down and control yourself?’

  ‘How slow is this thing?’ Still standing, Rex cupped his hands against the glass and peered at the black water three-hundred feet below. ‘We’re never going to get across the river at this rate.’

  ‘Rex, the moon is influencing you...’

  ‘No it isn’t.’

  ‘Yes, it...’ Quist recalled a similar pointless argument from earlier. ‘Let’s try your song. You know how it calms you when...’

  ‘No, I’m getting sick of humming that stupid tune.’ For the third time since leaving the station, their gondola came to a steady halt. ‘Oh, this is ludicrous. Why does it keep stopping like this?’

  ‘To let people on and off in the stations. Come and sit beside me.’

  Rex narrowed his eyes, staring at the illuminated Air Line station on the quayside way ahead. His wolf vision was able to make out the distant passengers leaving the building. Adler was amongst them, tugging at Ligeia’s arm and heading east at a fast pace towards the airport.

  ‘There they are,’ he snarled. ‘They’re already on the ground and we’re stuck up here, swinging about like the dick on a dancing donkey.’

  The detective cleared his throat, wondering where this peculiar phrase had come from and slightly unsettled by the mental image that had just been conjured up.

  ‘Well, I’m sick of this.’ Rex shrugged off his jacket and began to undo his trousers.