Better the Devil

by Mike Wild

  Actually, no. Make that funeral policy.

  To the rear, in a great wave that darkened their wake, the rest of the rippers were coming. Maybe because they had already been led such a merry chase, they seemed to have abandoned that one concession to humanity they seemed to have had earlier.

  In their new form, unobfuscated by their fog, the things were terrifying enough for Brand and Hannah - and they were used to such sights. For those who were not, it must have seemed that madness had arrived at the same time as death. The embarrassment of spontaneously purged bowels and bladders inside their designer skirts and trousers was, however, short-lived, as the stains were soon obliterated by blood, the rippers tearing through the offending body parts with no concern for the innocent at all. Then the bodies, too, were gone, shredded in a flurry of razor-sharp shadows that left their providers utterly unconcerned with social etiquette of any kind as they rained down in a red mist.

  Windows darkening with blood, all of a sudden it was like shopping-day in Silent Hill.

  "We have to get away from these crowds," Brand shouted. "Back into the sidestreets."

  "I'm trying, I'm trying," Hannah yelled back, scanning the route ahead. The shopping area was a cul-de-sac. "Goddammit, there's nowhere to-" She paused, spotted a potential escape route, and gunned up the gears, ready to floor the accelerator. "Aw, bollocks to it-"

  Brand felt himself blanche, a state he felt was rather appropriate, considering. "You can't," he said. "That's Anthony Worrall-Wilson's new-"

  Hannah could. The van was up the steps and halfway through the plate glass windows of the new restaurant before he finished the sentence, arcing above the diners in a shower of shards and a whine of airborne wheels. Numbly, Brand saw that the place seemed popular with celebrities, cringed as Erik Pakora shrieked and Richard and Judy dived for cover in a fountain. One of the diners - he thought it was William Shatner - foolishly stood up to object - but the rear wheel of the van bounced off his toupee without harming his head at all.

  Suddenly they were out through the plate glass window at the rear of the restaurant, bouncing down more steps. But at least the way ahead was clear. They sped into backstreets, passing a series of ramshackle and rundown offices - Frank Marker, Arthur Daley, Randall and... a partner's name that had been scrubbed out long ago. Hannah continued to push the van's engine to its limit.

  "We're almost there!" Brand shouted. "Stable Mews is just a little further on the left."

  "Yeah? Then for your sake this had better be worth it, Braini-"

  The roof of the van thundered as first one, then another, and then a third ripper landed upon it, their blades ploughing instantly through the metal. Then came more, and more, until a second later the van had all but disappeared beneath a flailing, all-consuming shroud. The windscreen darkened, then shattered, and blades began to chang against the doors.

  "Jesus!" Brand cried. "Not now!"

  Ducking to dodge the penetrating blades, Hannah grit ted her teeth and hurled the van into Stable Mews, but the weight of the rippers combined with the sharpness of the manoeuvre tipped the vehicle beyond its centre of gravity, and over. They arrived at their destination all right, but with the van careening along the ground on its side. Its momentum carried it almost to the far end of the Mews where it smashed into a wall, and there it lay still, smoking and beginning to flame.

  A bruised and battered Hannah and Brand burst from the upright door and ran like hell, the subsequent explosion blowing them forward off their feet and onto their bellies. There they lay winded and gasping on the ground, and it took a few seconds before either of them could turn and look behind them.

  They wished they hadn't. Though the crash and resultant blast seemed to have culled the rippers who had assaulted the van, more were already pouring into the Mews. They began to clatter towards them. Wearily, the two stood.

  It was Exham Priory all over again.

  Only this time there was no esc-

  Hannah and Brand shielded their eyes as a great lance of hellfire appeared suddenly from above, stabbing itself into the Mews and cutting a swathe back at least fifty metres, in a straight line, right through the rippers. Concrete and tarmacadam roiled as if they were nothing more than soil being churned by a plough. Exposed cables and water pipes severed or blew apart, releasing deadly clouds of sparks or steam, and what cars were unfortunate enough to have been parked here were simply blown into the air as if launched by hydraulic pistons off a Hollywood set. They crashed back to earth in a rending of metal and unceasing blaring of alarms, but noisy as they were they were it was nothing compared to the banshee-like death screams of the rippers themselves.

  A moment later each and every one of them lay twisted and still.

  Brand glowered with fury at the figure responsible. "Apocalypse magic," he snapped. "You used apocalypse magic again."

  Baarish-Shammon hovered slightly above the ground before him, arms folded, smiling. [Hey, I figured I'd already blotted my infernal copybook, loverboy, so who gives a toss]

  "She has a point, Brainiac," Hannah said.

  "And you can't deny it was effective," another voice added. It was not usual for Hannah Chapter to gasp, but on this occasion she did. Lawrence Verse strode towards her wearing a big grin. He paused momentarily to stomp on the head of a single, still twitching ripper, and smeared the remains across the tarmac.

  "You're supposed to be dead," Hannah said.

  Verse winked. "So were you. In Boswell."

  "True. So..."

  "Kevlar vest. But even then-"

  Hannah looked down - or as was the case, more or less straight ahead - at his torso, saw the thickly wound bandages and sucked in a breath. Gentle as it was, Verse winced as Hannah placed a concerned hand over the reddening dressings. "Easy, doll. These come loose and you'll be knee deep in intestines."

  "This is bad," Hannah said. "You need help. A hospital."

  Verse nodded. "That's as maybe, but so long as we're all persona non grata, I'm gonna have to do without." He glanced at a dead ripper. "Last thing the NHS needs is these bastards loose in A&E, whether they help to shorten its waiting lists or not."

  "Speaking of these bastards, how in hell did you find us? Even I didn't know I was coming here."

  Verse pointed to a nearby rooftop and Hannah received her second surprise in as many minutes, but it was nowhere near as pleasant as the first. Up above, Ness was clambering out of a helicopter cockpit, head ducking to avoid its downspinning rotors. "Very own chopper pilot," Verse said, and harumphed. "Actually, we weren't looking for you at all, but figured whatever was going on was going on in London and we'd be safe investigating from the air. While we were up, you were difficult to miss... nice stuntwork, by the way."

  "Thanks, but I never thought that bastard'd dare show his face again."

  Verse smiled. "Let's just say he had an offer that was difficult to refuse."

  "Oh?"

  "Later. I don't think we're out of this yet."

  Brand slumped onto the chassis of an upturned car, exhausted. "What Mr. Verse says is true. We'll remain targets so long as the Accord clause remains broken, unfortunately. There may be a way to redress the balance, but as yet I don't know what it is."

  "Tekkin' out the bastards who se' us up in the first place might be a start," Ness said, joining them.

  Brand nodded. "We'll need to discover what's behind all this, and keep a very low profile while we do."

  "Makes sense," Hannah agreed, "but just where are we supposed to do that?"

  "Ah," Verse said. "That is another surprise." The priest turned and beckoned to a figure who had so far been standing in the shadows. A dark-haired woman, oddly pale and in old-fashioned clothes, stepped forward. "This is Mary," Verse explained. "We've just met, but apparently she has been waiting here, in Stable Mews... for you."

  "Popeye's note?" Hannah asked Brand.

  The academic shrugged.

  "She offers sanctuary," Verse added. "It seems that Caballistics
, Inc is going underground."

  Chapter Eleven

  How much deeper? How much longer? How much further down?

  Solomon Ravne cursed.

  Where the hell was this missing reanimate?

  By his estimation he had been descending for half the - what? Morning? Evening? No way to tell down here - and there was still no sign of the woman Marcus Farrow had sent him to find. He was starting to have trouble believing she was here at all, let alone that he had allowed himself to be coerced into this errand of mercy in the first place.

  If, indeed, errand of mercy it was. Maybe Farrow had simply sent him on a wild goose chase in the hope he might become lost in the depths and never return. Or maybe he was simply sending him towards something else that waited down here in the dark, something that would do the dead man's dirty work for him.

  Why, Ravne had asked himself, hadn't he simply gone up and been done with this whole thing? There was no one to stop him now, after all. No one at all.

  The first reason was obvious - he had no idea whether the rippers still roamed the surface, and he had no intention of risking his life topside until he did. The second reason was that despite himself he had become intrigued - he wanted to discover who these hunters were and what, if anything, they had to do with him. As for the third reason, well, that was entirely to do with what had happened after Farrow had cut him down from the wheel.

  Ravne smiled grimly, remembering how - his adrenalin rush calming - the underground chamber had begun to chill him to the marrow. He had spread his arms and looked down. "And you expect me to help you like this... unprotected and naked?"

  There had been movement from one of the group. An old woman, impossibly gnarled and dead more than a century by his estimation - why anyone had gone to the bother of reanimating her he did not know - had moved away and then returned and tossed his clothes at him. He had raised a surprised eyebrow, glancing at Farrow. The young man had, in turn, given him a knowing glance - he had known what he had been thinking - and told him his clothes were those he had been buried in. Hearing that news, he hadn't been able to suppress a smile - he had been so convinced that his clothing had been stolen that he'd obviously never realised he possessed such funereal taste.

  His clothes had hit his flesh with a slight thopp, still half damp. "The jacket was too badly damaged, but the shirt and trews were only covered in shite," the old woman said matter-of-factly. "Clean, now. Darned, too, where needed. But I drew the line at yer keks. Ah've seen many a thing in me time, Mister Solomon Ravne, but ah've never seen anythin' like those."

  He remembered that he had actually laughed.

  "T'was me that fixed yer leg, too," the old woman had added, staring him in the eye. "We're the result of your kind's depraved needs, Mr. Solomon Ravne - we're not your kind."

  He had been left momentarily speechless by her words. It was the first time he had ever known a reanimate do something for him without being told to do so. As a result, he even asked her name.

  It was Meg. She, he realised, was Meg.

  Farrow had explained to him what he wanted him to do, then about how he wanted him to find the missing girl. Her name was Elizabeth, and it seemed that she had been foraging for food in the upper levels of the tunnels that connected to the chamber when she had encountered the hunters. It remained a mystery who the hunters were, but according to Farrow they had been responsible for the disappearance of nine more of the reanimates' number in the past few weeks, a situation that had led him and his people to lay traps in the hopes it would deter them from returning. The traps hadn't, though, and while all of the others who left the chamber to forage for food had been instructed to head for prearranged hiding places if spotted, Elizabeth, it seemed, was a little slow on the uptake. It wasn't the girl's fault - it had been syphilis that had taken her at the age of seventeen, apparently - but for whatever reason she had been reanimated, she had been returned with a brain already partly turned to mush.

  Elizabeth had panicked and run. The last that anyone had seen of her was when she had vanished into the tunnels that led to the depths.

  Her disappearance, particularly, had piqued his interest, because it begged one question - why was it that they needed him to find her? These people were seers, after all, and Farrow alone should have had little trouble tracking Elizabeth down. All together, they should have had none at all.

  But they couldn't do it, Farrow had admitted. There was something wrong with them. Something down here had started to affect their abilities.

  In the event the same thing ever happened to Billy, he wanted to find out what.

  So here he was, actually honouring an agreement he had made for one of the few times in his long life. In case that seemed a little too altruistic, he reminded himself that when he got back he fully intended to collect on Farrow's offer of help in return.

  Even though, in fact, the debt had already been partially repaid.

  Ravne held the Lamp of Alhazred that Farrow had recovered from the streets before him in the dark, the trapezoid lens in its lantern casing capable of disintegrating demons when casting its usual Wyrd Light, but also a surprisingly good source of simple illumination when not burning the "special" oils Wyrd Light required. Not that it was entirely normal oil he was burning now, of course - he had added a little something designed to alert him to any threatening auras in his vicinity, physical, spectral or atmospheric. The "little something" was actually a mixture of pineal essence, optical vitreous and bile from a schizophrenic but, in his current circumstances, he had started to think of it as oil of crushed canary.

  So far its colour had remained reassuringly yellow.

  Ravne continued down, sighing. Even though he had been descending for half a day, the going so far had been laboriously slow. The fact was, due to the very nature of the tunnels, he had been unable to find a route that led straight down, and much of his time had been spent diverting from one access way to another - at first through the sloping tube tunnels that connected to the chamber, then through dark and forgotten service shafts, and finally through vaulted, stone-built passageways whose original purpose had long since been lost to time. The older his surrounding environment became, of course, the less reliable it proved to be. Ravne estimated he had lost a third of his travelling time finding alternatives to rotted walkways, rusted-away ladders, or collapsed bridges that forded slowly bubbling and densely black subterranean streams. It seemed that everything beneath a certain depth was succumbing to an entropy that would one day completely erase this lonely place, undermining the foundations of the city and sucking it down into its own forgotten past.

  Despite frustration at his lack of progress, Ravne could not help but wonder what the purposes of some of the strange devices he was coming across had been. Crusted and jammed wheels that had once stirred twisting pipes to life. Handles that had once turned now almost toothless gears. And cobwebbed switches that he could not resist throwing, realigning machinery that could not be seen but only heard kak-klikking in shadowed recesses in the walls.

  He was, of course, old enough to remember the purpose of these things, but the fact was he had never bothered himself with such practical and mundane minutiae, for he had always considered that to be the stuff of normal men.

  Maybe he should ask Mary Henderson, he thought. For Mary had seen out more than three centuries, just like him.

  Ravne thought back again to his departure from the Dead of London's hidden chamber.

  "We do not matter to you at all, do we?" Farrow had asked him as he had been about to leave. "Our kind?" The second part of his question, almost spat, had been more challenge than query.

  "I do not know your kind," he had answered. And with an image of McKenzie and the emphasis very much on the possessive, added, "I only know mine."

  Farrow had nodded slowly in acknowledgement, then smiled grimly. He had motioned to the woman he now knew as Mary, and she had joined him, taking his hand. Then, without warning, the two of them had entered his bra
in.

  Ravne remembered being plunged into a psychic maelstrom of two lives that were not his own, living in seconds the people who Marcus Farrow and Mary Henderson had been. He, a successful and soon to be promoted lawyer alive only months before, she the owner of a tavern called The Crown in the Shoreditch of the 1700s. It was not just what they were that he experienced, however, but who - an intermingling of souls filled with laughter and sorrow, pleasure and pain, and the wonders and agonies of love and loss throughout two journeys lived as much as they could manage, to the full. So intense were the feelings that he had found himself gasping, psychically breathless, and he was caught up with the two of them so much that when they died he had actually heard himself scream.

  But that scream was nothing to the one he heard when their respective masters had brought them back.

  So that was what it felt like.

  Gods.

  Enough!

  He had almost collapsed to the ground between them then, gasping physically as much as he had gasped in his mind, and Farrow had been forced to steady him with an iron grip to the arm.

  "So what is it you want me to feel?" he had asked him. "Guilt?"

  "Not guilt, not anything," Mary Henderson had replied in the lawyer's stead. "For a short time we just wanted you to feel."

  Ravne smiled to himself in the dark. To feel. Well, much as he hated to disappoint them, only one thing had come out of their little appeal to his humanity, and that was the knowledge of why Farrow was angrier than the others - the lawyer hadn't just been reanimated, he'd been murdered in the first place. The truth was, he found that grimly amusing.

  To feel, he thought again. They didn't know him at all, did they?

  Ravne continued inexorably on, down, and down again. He was so deep now that the mysterious rusting and rotting examples of man's intrusion into the underground world were becoming fewer and fewer, and the passageways themselves less like passageways and more like caves. But though he had passed well below the city, this place was not silent, and he could hear a series of strange thrums and poundings in the rock, and somewhere amongst them, a distant scream.