by Paul Cornell
Around her, she could hear sobbing, cries of anger. She felt the rest of this community beside her, these wonderful, vulnerable people, and she realized they weren’t in this future. They didn’t have a place in it. By this point they were all gone. What about Ross? What about her friends? She didn’t know how to begin to search for them. Sefton could do this, maybe; she couldn’t. They were seeing all this, and they had deliberately left Sefton behind!
She felt the intensity of the vision growing and growing. It had taken over everything else. ‘Other’ was still sitting there at the edge of it, but now she was making wild gestures, as if it had got out of her control. The audience were tumbling out of their seats now, trying to hang on as the auditorium upended itself, and they were grabbing things, trying not to fall into that huge laughing mouth, which was getting bigger and bigger.
An enormous sound.
The slamming open of a door.
Ross fell back and so did all those around her. They were panting, tears on their faces. Beside her, Costain carefully and slowly relaxed back into his seat. She looked back to the stage, where the robed figures were staggering, trying to support each other, sitting down.
‘You must excuse me.’ The familiar voice came from the back of the room, theatrically loud. Ross turned to look. Standing in the central doorway of the auditorium was Gilbert Flamstead, in a grey jacket with a red silk lining. ‘Could anyone tell me where I am?’ he asked. ‘I’m here completely by accident.’
Lofthouse wouldn’t normally have elected to go to sleep at eight o’clock in the evening, but she was exhausted. The key on her wrist was urging her to keep moving, but that was beyond her. She used her torch to look long and hard at the cavern she’d come to and found nothing in the graffiti to suggest it was particularly dangerous. There was a sheer drop nearby, but not so close that she might roll into it in her sleep. She started pulling the sleeping bag from her pack. She’d have the first portion of her rations. She had four more packs: supper tonight and three square meals tomorrow, because whatever happened, she had to be out of here by Sunday night.
She tensed at a sound from deeper down the tunnel. She waited, but no further sound came. Water would drip. Rocks would fall. The silence would never be complete.
She ate some of her Kendal mint cake, drank some of her water, curled up in her sleeping bag, still fully clothed, and switched off her torch.
She waited in the darkness. Was she going to be able to get to sleep? What else could be down here? She realized that the texture of the silence had changed. She heard . . . voices? Yes, definitely voices. She sat up, fumbled for the zip on her sleeping bag, found it and slowly, deliberately tugged on it, needing her legs to be free. The voices weren’t speaking English. The language sounded sibilant, like nothing that could be made by a mouth. It was like hearing water talking.
She got slowly to her feet, trying not to make a noise. She picked up the bag with the gun and found her torch. There was definitely movement at the end of the passage, between her and where she would be heading tomorrow. Something big and slow . . . a cluster of them. A smell came with them, something like rotting fat. She found the cartridges and started to load them into the shotgun. If these were animals, the noise in this space would . . . also do permanent damage to her ears, yes. She pulled the cartridges out again. If these were animals, the torch might prove just as shocking.
She prepared herself, aware that all that was keeping her hands moving in the face of sheer, physical terror was a sense of something beyond herself, of duty. She aimed the torch towards the mass at the end of the tunnel and switched it on.
She got a glimpse of three enormous pink men, or something like men. They were naked, vastly obese, with enormous hands, small eyes, large, flaccid genitals and . . . long, elephantine probosces instead of noses. These were not, incredibly, beings one needed the Sight to perceive, she realized in that second. There was something about them that looked hungry.
They screamed through their trunks and flung up their hands to cover their faces.
They screamed as they rushed at her.
A thought was in her head to go forwards, not to flee. She ducked past the first set of flailing arms that grabbed for her and dived towards the end of the tunnel. One of them spun and the back of a wet red hand sent her staggering. Her feet slipped on the sudden wetness of the path. She was going to fall. She tried instinctively not to let go of the gun, threw a hand out to steady herself.
There was nothing there. She fell. She hit a wall. She was in darkness. She screamed. She fell once more.
Ross had expected the audience to realize that here was the Trickster, summoned by their ceremony, but among those all around her getting to their feet, none of them seemed to be doing that. A few close to Flamstead had already risen to engage with him, some of them star-struck, shaking him by the hand, answering his question, some of them berating him for interrupting this ancient ceremony. Ross looked back to the stage. Tock was sitting there, his gaze flicking suspiciously to Flamstead as the other robed figures talked to him urgently. They had gained a vision, but the interruption meant they were wondering if they could have seen more. There seemed to be no question of starting again. The acolytes were spraying fire extinguishers on the blaze, and it was already reducing to smoke, which impossibly flattened and rushed back into the pile of blackened wood.
‘Him,’ said Costain.
‘Yeah,’ said Ross, ‘you got a problem with that?’
Before he could answer, Flamstead, with a shout of surprise, had come trotting over. ‘What a vast surprise to find you here! You shouldn’t really come for a drink with me, should you? Or can I persuade you?’
Ross took his hand and allowed herself to be helped out of her seat, and kissed him hello. She looked deliberately back at Costain. ‘I’m buying,’ he said.
They went to the hotel bar, which already had in it a handful of the audience from the summoning, those willing to stomach the prices in search of something to fortify them after that. Flamstead just said, ‘Anything,’ when Costain asked him what he wanted to drink. Ross wondered if that actually meant nothing, but it seemed, considering the long gulp he took of the pint of lager Costain gave him, that not expressing a preference meant he didn’t have to lie. She stayed on the Diet Coke.
Costain rather aggressively clinked glasses with the actor. ‘So,’ he said, ‘obviously it can’t be a coincidence you’re here – let’s get past that.’ Flamstead made a sad clown face, emphasizing that any comment he would have made had been cut off. ‘And I know asking you questions isn’t a good idea. So. Most of this lot don’t get who you are.’
Flamstead smiled. ‘The ones who do trust me implicitly.’
‘Meaning that the ones who realize who you are don’t want you here.’
‘Because,’ said Ross, joining in, ‘he represents lies, and they’re after the truth.’
‘I’ve never done them any harm!’ laughed Flamstead. ‘Or caused any of them to stumble on the path. Or thrown any of them from windows or anything like that. Not at all.’
‘They probably don’t like your tone,’ said Costain. ‘I’ve known people like you all my life. It’s all fun, until somebody loses an eye, and then it’s still fun for you.’
Flamstead simply bowed. Then he looked to Ross. ‘Don’t think I’m here for you, young lady.’
She felt suddenly scared again. If he was here to help her, then she must need helping.
‘Oh, just leave it out, OK?!’ Costain had put his pint down and was suddenly in Flamstead’s face. ‘I do not intend to allow you to . . . I can’t just frigging . . . You can’t have her without . . . !’ His fury seemed to be getting in the way of his speech, his head actually jerking back and forth with each wrench of indecision. ‘Fuck it!’ He lashed out with his hand, not at Flamstead, but towards the table, and sent the pint glass flying, causing the barkeeper to start yelling that he’d pay for that. But Costain was out of the door.
‘I wou
ldn’t dream of paying for the damage,’ said Flamstead to the barkeeper, doing just that.
Ross realized she was shaking. God, she hated that that had been about her. Did making her own choices really have to end up with blokes acting like that? That had gone beyond all normal behaviour. Was Costain cracking up too? ‘He . . .’
‘Knows what he’s doing, and yet he doesn’t.’
‘Hey. That has to be true.’
Flamstead scowled as if caught out. ‘What are you to him, do you think? A prize to be fought over? An individual whose wishes are to be respected? A lady to look up to? A colleague, a source of anger, a regret, a foul temptress? Do any of these words set off anything in that brain of yours?’
There was a shout from the doorway. Tock, back in his normal attire, had entered, and with him were several more of those who’d been onstage. They were all looking angrily at Flamstead. ‘You’re not welcome here,’ Tock said. ‘I can tell this bar not to serve you. You know you’re banned from this hotel.’ Flamstead just smiled indulgently. ‘You’ – Tock pointed at Ross – ‘you should know what happens to those who worship him. Have you made a sacrifice to him?’
‘More the other way round.’ She’d meant it as a joke, but they obviously understood what she meant and, to her surprise, backed away slightly. She recalled what had been said at the first auction she’d been to, about not giving up oneself to London or any other power that got sacrificed to. Was she wrong to trust Flamstead? She looked at him now, and still felt that sense of baseline ease. She would, after all, always know when he was lying.
‘Fucking whore,’ said Tock. ‘I don’t use those words lightly.’
‘Fucking cunt,’ said Ross calmly, and took a sip of her drink. ‘Me neither.’
‘I bought your happiness fair and square. You know what I’m planning to use it for? I’m going to give it away, as a sacrament, something to share out at the end of this convention, something to hold this culture together, in the face of that vision we all saw just then. We know what’s coming now. We’re going to swear to stay together, to bind ourselves to solidarity by all drinking from the same cup, by all feeling uplifted for a moment. So go on, call me the bad guy, when I’m doing that and you’re fucking that thing.’
Ross wondered if he’d been so unpleasant before the death of his . . . wife, partner, whoever ‘Mags’ had been. There was something about the bullish set of his shoulders that said yeah, probably. ‘Are you going to throw us out?’
‘Are you going to behave?’
The bartender looked up from his phone. ‘Erm, actually, Mr Flamstead can stay,’ he said. ‘The manager says that’s policy from now on.’
Tock stared at him for a moment, so angry he couldn’t speak. Then, without a word, he turned on his heel and left. The others followed him, glaring back at Flamstead as they went.
Costain entered again as they did so, stepping carefully away from the men storming out. He looked contrite, in control again. He raised his hands. ‘What I said before—’ he began. Then, at a wry glance from Flamstead, he stopped, decided instead to remain stoic. ‘I heard what was happening. I went round the corner to the hotel front desk and showed my warrant card. I said you’re with us.’ Then he went to the bar and started apologizing.
‘He’s really keeping it together,’ whispered Flamstead, his tongue in Ross’s ear, ‘a straightforward character with no contradictions.’
Quill had found an empty space in one of the houses that seemed to be intended as a bedroom. It was freezing. The heating didn’t work. Of course, these weren’t real homes, but at least he was out of the wind. The question the Smiling Man had left him with sat in his stomach like indigestion. He would need an answer by the morning.
Just accept, and then all hope is gone. Great! Done! Sorted! Ignoring the cold, he got his notes from his bag and started arranging his ops board around the room. He stopped after a while. None of the connections seemed to connect. He looked to one of the windows, with no curtains, and saw the lurid lights of Hell outside. They could become solid, something to depend on, if he agreed. That would just be for him. For nobody else. Not yet. Against them, on the close outside, stood the silhouette of Moriarty.
Quill realized that another figure was visible against the lights, had seen him and was now approaching. Shit! He leaped into the corner and pulled his coat over him to hide.
He heard the sound of the door opening. Someone entered the room. He couldn’t face whoever it was being a copper.
A hand pulled aside the coat. Quill scrambled away and saw who it was. It was Laura. She was looking as calm as ever.
‘Hi,’ she said.
‘Have you moved to London?’ Quill leaped to his feet. ‘Have you?’
‘No.’ Her voice was careful as always. She had the sort of face that clearly had once been that of a man, but somehow her transition had added something to it. Whatever it was that had been added, some hard-won sort of compassion, maybe just the result of all the shit people had flung at her, Quill found himself relieved to see it now. ‘Why do you ask?’
He made himself be calm, to match her. ‘How did you find me? Did one of my lot use . . . stuff you don’t know about?’
‘Nothing like that. You switched on your phone. Sarah has “Find My Phone” set up for you. She asked me to go to see you first, because . . . well, she’s afraid of you. And she’s afraid for you.’ Quill was biting his lip hard. ‘I was hoping we could talk, and you could tell me what was wrong, because Sarah thinks some of it is about me.’
Quill had to force out the words. His own voice sounded to him like that of a scared child. ‘You wouldn’t believe me.’
‘Sarah also said that, within some limits which she set out for me, I should believe what you say. She told me about what happened with Jessica last year. About her being taken by Mora Losley. About . . . what Mora Losley really was.’
‘And you believed that?’
‘Yes.’ It was the quickest, most unqualified reply he’d ever heard to that question. ‘I know Sarah. I also know the truth when I hear it.’
‘That was all she told you?’
‘Yes, and to be honest, that was enough to scare the fucking crap out of me, Jim. I can see why you don’t want me to move here. I’m having second fucking thoughts myself.’
‘She didn’t tell you the hard bit.’
‘She said you wouldn’t tell her.’ She sat down opposite him and waited.
He paced for a while. ‘There’s stuff she doesn’t know. Big stuff. It rips up everything you rely on. It makes all this’ – he gestured around him – ‘into a joke. I have to tell you, though, so you can save yourself. Then I’ll have saved one.’
‘By me not moving to London?’
‘Yes! That’s all you have to do. I can’t tell you why. It’s about a threat that’s been made. More than a threat, a certainty. It’s someone Sarah’s probably told you about. We call him the Smiling Man. It’s too late for the rest of us. We’re doomed. Sarah and Jessica. They don’t know. That’s why I’m . . . Because they don’t know and I can’t tell them! You can save yourself by not moving here.’
Laura nodded. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I understand.’
‘So you won’t live in London?’
‘I’ll live where I want to. This Smiling Man of yours doesn’t get to tell me what to do.’
‘But I’ve told you! You don’t know—’
‘This is harassment. You give in to that, that way lies madness.’ She went to him and put a hand on his arm. ‘You’ve done your best to save me. Now it’s up to me.’
Quill could only look at her. ‘I’m sorry—!’
‘Listen. What do you most want to do?’
As they walked out into the cold night air, Quill stopped. He could still see, he realized, Moriarty, standing next to what must be Laura’s rented car in the empty close of houses.
Him being there felt different now. Not a threat. Quill felt that Moriarty was something to do with him
, that he almost had a responsibility towards him. There was something about him that made Quill think . . . perhaps here there was even something that might help him, though help still felt a long way away.
He didn’t know what he was doing. Acting on instinct. Still ill. ‘Can you see someone over there?’ he asked Laura.
Laura remained deliberately calm. ‘No.’
‘Great,’ said Quill. ‘Here, you!’ He marched towards Moriarty, who reacted like a scared cat, but Quill made calming gestures. ‘I’m going home. Do you want to come too?’
TWENTY-FOUR
Lofthouse lay on the ground, panting. She was in absolute darkness. She’d bloody well left her pack on the other side of the chamber when she’d run at those things. She had her torch, and what was in her shoulder bag . . . Yes, it was still here . . . and she’d kept hold of the gun, thank Christ. She felt like her ribs were bruised down her right-hand side, where she’d landed. She’d taken some of the impact on her knees, which also felt fucked. She’d hit a few lumps of rock on the way down too. Her fingers and palms were ripped from trying to grab for dear life. She put out a hand and found a rock wall, the cool of the wet rock against the heat of her skin. She found purchase and used her better leg to push herself upright. She experimentally put some of her weight on her other leg, and just managed to stifle a cry of pain.
She lay against the wall, breathing deeply. She was going to die here. She was going to die far beneath the earth. She would just vanish. They’d say she was having an affair. The thing inside Peter might think she’d taken action against it and Peter might be tortured, might be killed. She let the panic take her for a while, her breathing turning into gasping, but then that turned into coughing, and she slowly calmed. The fear had nowhere to go. She felt a familiar sensation and searched for her charm bracelet. The key was indeed still pulling steadily in one particular direction. She found the torch and switched it on. There was a narrow path ahead of her, another sheer drop to her right. She’d hit without rolling, thank God, or that might have been the end of her.
