by Patrick Ness
‘We can’t kill them!’ says Matteusz. ‘You know we can’t!’
‘Christ,’ April sighs. ‘You want to keep your mouth shut? Maybe I’ll kill you instead.’
She looks at Quill. ‘So? You still want to fight me?’
‘Well,’ says Quill. ‘You have a knife so you’re presenting a clear threat to the life of my charge.’
‘What?’ April sneers.
Quill moves faster than April can even react. From her perspective there’s just a blur of movement and then a blinding pain in her neck. Then she doesn’t know anything at all.
Tanya stares at Quill, who is now holding the knife. April has fallen to the floor, unconscious.
‘That was genuinely cool,’ Tanya says.
‘So glad you enjoyed it,’ Quill says. ‘Here . . .’
She tosses the knife, handle first, and Tanya grabs it. She looks down at it. ‘Why are you giving me this?’ she asks, looking up just in time to see Quill fill her vision. Then, for James Banks, property developer and current occupant of Tanya Adeola, the world goes away for a bit.
Quill looks at Matteusz. ‘Want to try?’
‘No!’ he cries. ‘God no!’
Charlie, panicking, is checking April. ‘You’d better not have harmed her,’ he says.
‘Well, I’ve harmed her a bit, obviously, she’s unconscious. But she’ll recover.’ Quill grabs him by the arm and drags him towards the front door. ‘Shall we go?’
‘We’re just going to leave them there?’ he asks.
‘I think that’s best, don’t you? The next time they try and harm you I may do some permanent damage.’
She pulls him outside. ‘And it’s not as if we don’t know where we’re going.’
‘Swallow Avenue?’
‘You were paying attention after all. Good.’
Charlie pulls his arm free of hers and straightens his clothes. ‘You enjoyed that, didn’t you?’
‘What? You think I’m so petty as to have taken pleasure in finally being able to knock around some people who have been less than appreciative of me?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Then you’re not as stupid as I thought.’ Quill smiles. ‘Good for you. Now, where is this Swallow Avenue?’
‘I haven’t a clue. How would I know?’
Quill sighs, ‘I thought it was somewhere you were familiar with.’
‘No.’ Charlie takes out his phone. ‘I’m sure we can find it with this, though.’ He opens the map application and taps in the address. ‘It doesn’t look far. Ten minutes’ walk maybe?’
‘Fine.’
‘And what do you plan on doing when we get there?’
‘Oh, I imagine it’ll involve beating someone up.’
TWENTY-FIVE
STEVE TRIES TO COME UP WITH A PLAN
Steve really doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. He looks at the unconscious bodies of the two girls and seriously considers just running as far and as fast as he possibly can. Thing is, what’s the point? As soon as he’s pulled out of this body he’ll be face-to-face with Fletcher again anyway.
He pats his pockets and finds Matteusz’s phone. He tries to remember Fletcher’s number and realises he can’t. What’s the point of phone contacts if you have to remember everyone’s number? He puts the phone away again. Should he maybe follow the other two? Is that a good idea? Might that spare him from a sound beating? (If only he thought that was the worst thing that might happen. He’s under no illusions that Fletcher wouldn’t happily kill him. No illusions at all.)
One of the girls, the black one, starts groaning. Which one is that? Banks or Taylor? Not that he favours either. They’re both as awful as each other.
Maybe it would be better if he weren’t around when they woke up? They didn’t seem very pleased with him, after all. In fact they might decide to take out their frustration on him. Could they kill him? For one panicked moment he’s not sure, then he gets his head together. No, of course not—the whole point is that he’s effectively invulnerable in this body. They can hurt him, but they can’t kill him. Good, that’s one thing then.
Except, he really doesn’t fancy being hurt either.
No, the best plan is to run away now, follow the two aliens, then when he does have to face Fletcher, he can at least make a sound case for having tried to be useful. It’s not as if anybody would expect him to be able to kidnap two people on his own, is it? Especially given the punchy one, the really scary ninja woman from hell. Banks and Taylor will certainly back him up on that.
So, yes, good, he’s finally made a decision. He finally has a workable plan. Run away. He heads towards the door.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ asks whichever of the horrible people is in the white girl.
‘Following them, obviously!’ he says, trying to sound as if this is the sort of answer that nobody in their right mind could argue with, the sort of answer that can only have all sensible people nodding and waving him on his way.
‘Yeah,’ says the man who isn’t April. ‘Fair enough, we’ll come with you. You alright, Banksy?’
‘Yeah,’ says the man who isn’t Tanya, getting to his feet. ‘Let’s get those bastards.’
Steve doesn’t like his plan anymore.
Banks tucks the knife into the back pocket of Tanya’s jeans and pulls the hem of her T-shirt down over it. ‘You see that?’ he asks, turning around.
‘No,’ says Taylor. ‘You’re fine.’
‘Great.’ Banks pushes Steve towards the door. ‘Come on, then.’
TWENTY-SIX
WARRING IN SUBURBIA
Quill moves so quickly that Charlie is forced into an awkward half jog just to keep up. The main thing that irritates him about this is that he knows she’s doing it on purpose.
‘If we’re going to wherever it is these people operate from,’ he says, ‘we could have just agreed to let them take us.’
‘Yes, we could. But then we would have been there under their control and, present company excepted, naturally, I don’t believe in being under someone else’s control. Besides, we don’t know if Swallow Avenue is where they’re operating from, do we?’
‘I can’t see why Ram would be asking us to go there otherwise.’
‘I imagine it’s probably a trap.’
Charlie rolls his eyes. ‘You would think that.’
‘It is precisely because I always assume the worst, young man, that you are still alive.’
Charlie can’t be bothered to argue as he knows he’s bound to lose. ‘But we’re still going?’
‘We’ve spent the entire day getting absolutely nowhere purely because we didn’t know what to do or where to go. After a couple of hours of that, I’ll happily take a trap over more sitting around.’
‘No wonder you ended up getting caught,’ he mutters.
Quill suddenly stops. ‘I beg your pardon?’
Charlie realises he’s probably gone too far, but is too annoyed with her to back down. ‘Well, with that sort of attitude, it’s surprising you and the revolution survived for as long as you did, isn’t it?’
‘You’re pushing your luck, Prince.’
‘Why? What are you going to do? Hit me? You can’t, remember?’
Quill turns and carries on walking. ‘No, but I could just go home, couldn’t I?’
‘No, because I’m going to Swallow Avenue whether you want to or not, and as long as I might be in danger you have to look after me.’
Quill roars with frustration. Several people on the street turn in panic to look at them. ‘And that is why you are just as bad as the people who are doing whatever this is,’ she says. ‘You hide behind false principles and smug superiority, but your people took me and turned me into a puppet.’
‘It was punishment for what you did!’
‘It was a way of getting the best bodyguard in the world at a price only one person would regret paying—me. Loyalty is something you have to earn, damn you. I spent my whole life earning it;
I risked my life earning it. How do you get it? By putting a permanent gun to my head. I tell you, anyone, anyone who goes to those measures to achieve loyalty doesn’t deserve any in the first place.’
Charlie is genuinely thrown. ‘I’ve never asked for your loyalty,’ he says.
‘Of course not. You don’t have to. If I don’t give it automatically, half of my frontal lobe will end up running out of my nose. Which way now?’
He doesn’t quite follow that she’s changed the subject for a moment. Then checks the map app on his phone and points over the road. ‘Up there.’
She storms off in the direction he’s pointed, forcing him to jog to catch up again.
‘You say it like you don’t deserve what happened to you,’ he says, finding it hard to walk and talk at this speed. ‘Don’t forget how many of my people you killed.’
‘I won’t,’ she says. ‘I relished each and every one of them.’
This stops Charlie in his tracks. ‘You don’t mean that.’ Quill stops too. No, she doesn’t mean that, of course she doesn’t; she fought for her people, killed for her people, and she’d do it all again. But that doesn’t mean she’s psychotic. She killed because it was war, she killed because that was what she had to do. There was no pleasure in it, just a constant slog towards victory and freedom. She turns to him and smiles.
‘Of course I mean it. Just a shame I missed you, Prince.’ She turns back and carries on in the direction they were going. Ahead of her she sees a small sign on a street cutting off to their left.
‘Swallow Avenue,’ she says. ‘Coming?’
She turns up the street and, for all her bravado, drops her pace to a slow walk. It’s a residential street, lots of windows, lots of places someone could be lying in wait.
Charlie knows she’s trying to get a reaction from him. Knowing it doesn’t stop him wanting to lash out at her though. What is it about Quill that can play him so well, can get under his skin and really make him burn?
‘There’s no sign of him,’ he says.
‘No, did you really think there would be?’
They walk up the road a little way, obliviously passing the entrance to the courtyard on their left. From the end of the street they can hear the sound of music playing loudly from an upstairs window, someone singing very earnestly about love while thrashing seven shades out of an acoustic guitar. Further off there’s the sound of children laughing, end of school, kids kicking out. A small motorbike suddenly farts its way past the end of the street, making them both jump.
‘So what now?’ he asks. ‘You want to start knocking door to door?’
‘Oi!’ someone shouts from behind them. ‘If we’d known you were coming this way anyway we wouldn’t have gone to the trouble.’
They both turn and, in the mouth of the road leading to the courtyard they see what looks like April, Tanya, and Matteusz, but isn’t. It was Tanya’s voice speaking, and April’s joins in.
‘We couldn’t believe it when Steve here told us where we were heading,’ she says. ‘We followed you all the way here. Unbelievable!’ She laughs.
‘I thought you were bound to spot us.’ Tanya again. ‘But you were too busy tearing chunks out of each other to notice us, weren’t you?’
‘Well,’ says Quill, walking slowly towards them, a smile on her face, ‘I’ve noticed you now.’ She’s feeling in a distinctly poisonous mood. She does hope somebody wants to make her do something energetic and fun.
Tanya suddenly grabs Matteusz, who until now has been standing awkwardly between them, clearly wishing he was anywhere but here. She holds the knife to his throat.
‘Don’t get excitable,’ Tanya says. ‘Slitting this kid’s throat won’t bother me. I’ve done worse. A lot worse, in fact. I once spent an entire afternoon inserting knitting needles into an annoying pensioner, so please, threaten me. I’m happy to get the pavement dirty.’
‘Please don’t!’ shouts Charlie and inwardly Quill curses. Never wear your heart on your sleeve in war, idiot—your enemy can cut it so easily.
‘In public?’ she asks, gesturing to the houses around. ‘You really think that’s a good idea?’
Tanya shrugs. ‘What do I care? This isn’t me, is it? I can do what I like. That’s the whole bloody point, isn’t it?’
Charlie walks past Quill. ‘Just let him go,’ he says. ‘It’s fine, honestly, we’ll come with you.’
‘Oh, will we?’ Quill asks.
Charlie turns to her and, after all the anger, all the insults and fighting, the look on his face isn’t one of belligerence. It’s pure, naked pleading. ‘Please,’ he says. ‘Please do as they say.’
She stares at the faces of April, Tanya, and Matteusz a moment longer. Matteusz’s contorted into a truly infant state of terror. Even though the life of the man occupying his body isn’t really on the line, he looks like he’s going to cry. These are not warriors, she thinks. Let them have their little moment, and when their guard drops . . .
‘Fine,’ she says, ‘lead the way.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
GARRY FLETCHER NEEDS TO TURN OVER A NEW LEAF
Fletcher has spent the last half an hour flitting between utter confidence and an urge to fetch a large can of petrol and a box of matches. Stood in the locked room, staring at the stinking remains he’s built his little empire on, he can’t help but think he’s made a few mistakes.
This place has only been six months of his life and yet it’s already earned a fortune. It’s a nightmare to run and the hours are excruciating (he takes a couple of days off a week, but the other five days can see him here from first thing in the morning to gone midnight). He doesn’t plan on doing it forever. Not just because it’s hard, but also because he knows that, sooner or later, something will go seriously wrong. If the machine were to break, he could never fix it (that’s been proven today); if the aliens he ‘appropriated’ it off returned, they might take it off him; he deals with some very dangerous clients, what they get up to during transfers proves that, and one of them could decide to kill him. Or he could simply get caught by the law; he’s not quite sure how, but who knows? Only an idiot assumes he’s invulnerable.
Yes, it’s a shaky business. A business with a limited time frame. But he really can’t have it fall apart yet because he’s still not made anywhere near enough money. This hasn’t exactly been a cheap start-up. He now owns this building. He’s had the electrics fixed and a proper full-size backup generator installed. He paid out a fair whack to Mike, though admittedly he nipped that expenditure in the bud after a few months. Now he pays Steve (and he’s clearly not worth it, but there you go). Basically, he’s been haemorrhaging cash from the beginning and is only just starting to build a decent profit. So the last thing he wants to do is kiss goodbye to all of it. But, if this is a sinking ship, he doesn’t want to go down with it either.
He moves back to the transfer room, locking the door again on the remains of the aliens.
He starts experimenting with the machine, working the switches, exploring the functions. As always, that little voice is in his head helping to guide his fingers just a little (if you were going to design a machine that reads its operator’s mind, why not go the whole bloody hog? If they had, he wouldn’t be having any of these problems—it would know what he wanted to achieve and would just show him).
He needs to figure out how the cock-up today happened. He may have fixed it, but what if it happens again? He needs to be able to work this thing properly. No more ‘getting away with it’—it’s too important.
‘What went wrong with you?’ he asks it, as if it might suddenly make life easier and talk back. He walks himself through the process.
‘Map, yes’—he brings up the map—‘then scan.’ He presses the button and the various lights showing viable transfers appear. ‘There we go, lots of viable transfers. Choose your location, pick one . . .’ He does, then follows the light around the surface of the pyramid to the next flat surface. ‘And Bob? He would be your uncle,’ he sa
ys, ‘while Fanny is most definitely your aunt.’ He stabs at the light. ‘Transfer selected, channelled through to headset . . .’ He moves around again where the operator chooses the headset. ‘And boom . . .’ He holds off on tapping the light one last time, not having anyone to transfer. He steps back, sighing.
‘Simple, it’s really, really simple . . . So what am I missing? How did that happen this morning? What else can this thing do that I’m just not seeing?’
Frustrated, he kicks at the base of the pyramid. ‘Balls to you.’
This is getting him nowhere. He also needs to check the car. He hasn’t had time to take a proper look at it. What if he’s been driving around in a thing with bloodstains on the bumper?
He walks out of the transfer room and pauses in the doorway. The mess in the room at the end. Why has he been so slack about that? He ditched the kid as soon as possible, shoved him in the boot of his car and drove him miles away, burying him out in the country. But the aliens? They were just so . . . gruesome. It was a job he’d kept putting off. He figured that nobody could do him for it—it’s not like they were human remains, after all. So it felt like something he could let slide. In the beginning, he’d kept pushing Mike to help him clear it out but it never happened and then Mike . . . Well, Mike wasn’t in a position to help him anymore, was he? There was no way he was letting anybody else see in there, and he hadn’t fancied doing it on his own.
Slackness. That’s basically all it was. He’d put it off and then it had become one of those invisible jobs, the sort you only remember need doing when you’re in no position to actually do them. He’d been so busy with the day-to-day stuff that whole weeks would go by without him even thinking about it. But look at today, look at how being slack had nearly cost him everything.
He needs to take better care. A new start. He’ll clear that room, get rid of useless Steve. (Actually wait, no, he’ll make Steve clear the room, convince him it was penance for him screwing up, and then get rid of him—much better idea.) He’ll get these aliens to teach him a few tricks, then he’ll get rid of them too. No loose ends.
