Ironhand (4 page)

E
verybody wants to fly. At some stage in their lives, everyone looks up in the sky and sees the seeming effortlessness of a bird in the gulf of air overhead and thinks: I wish, just one time, that could be me.

Nobody wants to fly like George was flying. He was upside down, back arched, staring at the ground below, winded by the sledgehammer blow between his shoulder blades, gagging soundlessly for a breath that just wouldn’t come.

All he could do was reach a despairing hand back toward the rapidly diminishing figure of Edie as she spun the wrong way on the crowded pavement, trying to see where he’d gone. She was turning like a leaf caught in the whirlpool of a fast-moving stream, looking everywhere but the right way, which was up.

And then, just as his vision started to spot and dim through lack of oxygen, he found a breath and took a deep whooping lungful of air, then another, and yelled— at the very moment the gargoyle crested a building, and Edie was lost to his sight.

“Edie!”

He shouted his throat raw in one ragged word that tore out of him like the death of hope, but his yell was lost in the greater noise of the city below.

Above him he heard the gargoyle hiss in disapproval, and felt its grip on his leg tighten. In a couple of thunderous wing flaps, they had cleared the next block of buildings and were flying across the Thames.

George looked at the water below, then he looked up just in time to see the stone creature taking a quick glance down at him. In the microsecond that they were face-to-face, he recognized the snarling cat head. He gaped in disbelief.

“Spout?!”

There was no doubt in his mind. This was the gargoyle he’d called Spout, the gargoyle who had tried to kill him at the Monument—the gargoyle he had seen shot to smithereens by the Gunner. The taint that was definitely dead.

“But you’re dead!”

The gargoyle hissed, and George turned and saw the brick face of the industrial chimney above the Tate Modern building coming closer and closer. Though he was sure that Spout meant to dash him against it, he just stared, without even the energy to put out a futile hand to ward off the inevitable. But at the last instant, Spout twisted in the air and jerked the talon at the end of one wing over the lip of the chimney and brought them to a sudden halt.

George hung there, nose to the brickwork, head throbbing with blood, just filling his lungs and wondering whether his heart was going to actually pound its way out of his chest, as it was trying to.

T
he Black Friar walked purposefully east, past the end of Westminster Bridge, through the thin flow of pedestrians, none of whom, of course, could see him; or if they could, had strong rational brains that wouldn’t believe the evidence of those irrational and untrustworthy eyes.

The Thames was to his right, and the great tower of Big Ben soared overhead, the illuminated clock face shining out into the gathering dark.

His eyes flicked sideways as he passed an impressive double equestrian statue. A regal woman in a simple shift dress, flowing cloak, and a small spiky crown stood in a chariot, her right hand holding a businesslike spear and the other hand languidly urging her two surging chargers forward.

She was flanked by her two daughters, crouched for balance over the brutally curved blades sticking out from the center of the chariot’s wheels. The whole group seemed on the very point of careering off the plinth and into Westminster Square.

The Friar nodded as he walked past. When it was clear he had no intention of stopping, the Queen spoke.

“Friar.”

He paused, waited a beat, then turned, not entirely hiding the fact he didn’t want to do so by the polite smile he erected on his face.

“Queen.”

“You do not bow.”

His smile deepened.

“Indeed.”

“You never bow.”

He spread his arms wide, the gesture of a man with nothing to hide, nor a care in the world. “I am friend of all men, equal to all, subject to none. I mean no offense by it.”

Irritation ticked across the royal brow. “And yet you give it.”

“Not by intent. It is my way, the way of my calling.”

“Priests bow to kings.”

He exhaled in the long drawn-out way that people do when they wish to make it clear how long-suffering they are. “Not
good
priests, dear lady. Not ones
I
should value, at any rate. But I was not talking about my calling. I was talking about my profession. As a publican. Why, as a host and a tavern-keeper, all men are equal in my sight.”

“And women,” she interjected sharply.

A shadow of a smile passed over his face, gone as soon as it appeared. “Women, in my experience, are perfectly equal as long as they keep to the lounge side of the bar.”

She bristled and gripped her spear tightly. Behind her, the two daughters exchanged a look. “You find this amusing? This is how you preach, fat man?”

The Friar raised an eyebrow at her. He smoothed the cassock over his belly. “You crave a sermon, lady? Why, upon my word, I thought war was more your pleasure.... But certainly, I’m sure I can conjure an improving text for you to consider. Let me see. Yes, it goes like this: ‘When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?’”

She glared at him as if trying hard to work out both where and how deep the insult hidden in the words was. Eventually she waved it off as too much trouble. “Blowhard words beyond my understanding. Perhaps they make more sense in an alehouse.”

He smiled his unimpeachable smile. “Well, I can see they wouldn’t make sense in a palace, where queens imagine themselves better than ordinary people.”

The spear shook in her hand as she spoke, the huskiness of anger building within. “You are purposely insolent!”

His face broke into a perfect grin of good humor, like a great round cheese splitting. He chuckled apologetically. “No, ma’am, I beg your pardon. It is a childish pleasure in me to tease a fine fiery redheaded woman such as yourself; for as the woodsman knows, no tinder is quicker to kindle than the red-barked.”

The daughters gasped and immediately looked away.

“You take me for a redhead, priest?”

“Certainly. Why else would they call you the Red Queen?”

She finally exploded, eyes flashing, jerking the sharp end of the spear at him as she did. “Not for my hair, fat man, not for my hair! They call me red because I swept down on this city in vengeance for the wrong to my daughters, and when I and my army turned our backs on the smoking ruins and hied us homeward, my arms were red to the elbows with the blood of London and its insolent—”

“Mother,” said the daughter on her left, taking her arm, trying to slow her down.

The other one took her right arm and attempted to stop the tirade by redirecting her attention. “Mother. The glint . . .”

The Queen controlled herself with visible effort.

The Friar’s eyes were all innocent good humor, much too innocent—enjoying the fallout of the detonation he had provoked.

She spoke as calmly as she could. “Yes. Of course. The glint. A glint, Friar. Last night we saw a glint run past us. With a boy.”

His eyebrows rose skyward in a show of surprise belied by the entirely uninterested face below them. “Oh. And you’re sure it was a glint?”

“You know as well as I that we sense them as strongly as they sense what is in stone. She was young. She was strong. And she was brave. But she ran. We wish to know what has happened to her.”

“And why is that, pardon my impertinence, but what business of yours are glints?”

The Queen gripped her spear and banged the haft on the floor of her chariot. “They are strong girls and they live at a peril beyond bearing. We have not seen one in years.”

“Perhaps you are mistaken.” The Friar shrugged.

“Not about that, Friar. Any woman in peril is my charge and care.”

“And why is that, pray?”

She slammed the spear down even harder, making her daughters jump. “Because I will it so. I have ALWAYS willed it so!”

Fire seemed to blaze from her eyes. The Friar had been right about how quick she was to kindle. “Why do you ask me this, madam?”

“Because she was running along the river, and sooner or later, the bank passes your door.”

He ran a hand over his face and wiped off all mirth. He inclined his head again, but not far enough for the gesture to be considered a bow of any kind. “The river passes many doors. I saw no one. Good night, ladies.” And with a nod of his head, he strode off eastward.

The Queen watched him go. She took several deep breaths, then turned to the daughter on her right.

“He lied. There is a glint abroad. We must ride. If this feeling I have in my bowels is true, there is a girl in peril.”

O
ne minute he was there. Then he was gone. It was that simple, that horrible, that brutal. Edie stepped into the street from the alley, looked right and left, turned to say she thought they might as well run if he was up for it— and he just wasn’t there anymore. It was so sudden and so shocking that her mind wouldn’t let her see the truth of it. Her first reaction was to be annoyed that George was playing games with her. She was tired, bone tired, and trying as hard as she knew not to let him see how close to the end of her rope she was feeling; and now here he was, playing hide-and-seek or something.

“Come on, George,” she said tightly. “I’m not in the mood—”

Then a nasty thought hit her: maybe he was hiding because he’d seen a taint or the Walker coming for them. She spun and checked the view behind her again. There was nothing.

An old homeless woman pushing a rattling shopping cart full of plastic bags and newspapers passed on the other side of the street. She was too far away for Edie to notice that her eyes were entirely black—and looking straight at her. And whatever she was mumbling to herself was drowned in the sound of the passing traffic.

Edie, seeing nothing threatening, let a half grunt of relief escape, then stepped back into the alley, looking for him.

“George!”

He wasn’t there. She checked the Dumpster and beside the car. There was no mistake. He was gone as cleanly and brutally as if he’d never been there in the first place. Panic swelled in her gut and swirled up into her chest, tightening around it, making her heart beat faster. Again she whirled around, looking for the hiding place she must have missed, fist already bunching so she could punch him when he jumped out and laughed at her. But she hadn’t missed a hiding place. George was not there.

All there was was the city and the street and the people hurrying past in the rain. And then just for a treacherous instant she was sure she heard George calling her name, impossibly far off and desperate; but when she spun in the direction she thought it had come from, there was nothing to see, and she knew her mind had betrayed her, making her hear things that weren’t there, just because she wanted them to be.

And as she spun slowly on the edge of the street, she felt her connection to it, and to everything around her, slowly begin to unravel; her mind finally allowed her to start believing that George had just vanished from her world. The hard fist at the end of her arm unknotted itself, the bony bunch of white knuckles and taut sinew slackening into an open hand whose limp fingers trailed in the air, making a lifeless circle around her as she turned, beginning to wonder if she were going mad. . . .

Then her foot stumbled over something, and she looked down. Her knees bent and straightened as the limp fingers flexed and came back to life and scooped up the thing that had caused her to stumble.

A shoe. George’s shoe.

It was wet and scuffed, but when she put her hand inside it, it was still warm. Then a piece of normality reasserted itself, and she realized she had voluntarily reached inside the shoe of a boy who had spent the last twenty-four hours or so doing little else except running, and she quickly pulled her hand back out of the clammy interior. Her nose wrinkled in momentary disgust that flattened out into a tight little smile as her hand clenched around the shoe, drawing life from the concrete proof it gave that George had been there, was real, and she was not going mad.

Holding the shoe made her stop spinning around, and she knew that was good, too, because she was suddenly aware that she had temporarily lost her grip and had been slowly unspooling herself.

She was done with that.

She banished the weasel voice back into the shadows by thwacking the heel of George’s shoe on the palm of her other hand, insistently beating toughness back into herself. The shoe, with its trailing laces, reminded her of the Gunner’s tightly cinched army boots and the reassuring clatter of hobnails when he walked or ran. Thinking of the Gunner seemed to help. She knew what he would have said if he had been there, if he’d been able to be inside her mind, listening to that sing-song chorus in her head.

He’d have dismissed the doubts and sent them away. She knew exactly what he’d have done, and so she did it.

“Right. Enough of that. Job to do. Get going,” she gritted. “Go mad later.”

And because she had thought of him and drawn strength from that thought, in a way the Gunner was with her, riding inside her head. And maybe that was the thing that put the iron back into her eyes and made her stride off with her back straight, heading for the river.

A
ll the blood in George’s body was obeying the call of gravity as he hung upside down, nose to the brickwork of a high chimney. He could feel his heart slamming as it fought a losing battle, trying to pump blood out of his head and circulate it normally, back up around his body. His ears pounded with a percussive swoosh and thud that got louder and louder until he was sure his head was going to burst with the pressure. He hadn’t been held upside down since he was a toddler. He had a sharp memory of his laughing mother stopping his father from dangling him over a pile of leaves, and he remembered the relief as his dad had turned him the right way around, and how they’d all tumbled into the pile and had a leaf fight. He must have been about six, and those were the happy days, when his mother’s laughter was just that, not a means of hiding something. The thought of her seemed to come from another life. He wondered if she was back in the country yet, if she knew he was missing. She must. Somewhere out there, she must be looking for him. She had to be.

He tried to think what he should do, and then just at the point where he was beginning to see little dancing spots of black unconsciousness whirling in from the edge of his vision, the gargoyle’s other leg talon closed around his neck—not hard—and he found himself being turned the right way up and brought face-to-face with the great feral cat head.

Spout’s stone eyes seemed to bore into him as the pressure that had built up in his head drained away and the black flecks whirled out of sight. His heart was still jackhammering in his chest, but the noise in his ears quieted to a background bass thump.

One feline eyebrow rose higher than the other, signaling a question. The stone mouth worked, trying to get a word out from behind the great teeth, with the awkwardness of someone trying to dislodge a fish bone without using his hands.

“Gack?”
he said, and paused as if waiting for a reply. When none came, he grimaced and appeared to try again.
“Gowk?”

Somehow the strangest thing, stranger than hanging off the top of the tall industrial chimney in the grip of a flying gargoyle, was the fact that the gargoyle appeared to be trying to talk to him.

George knew there was something wrong with this. He knew it in his guts.

“Why aren’t you dead?” he asked, his voice as raw as the wind whipping around the top of the stack. He realized he also wanted to know why
he
wasn’t dead, why the thing hadn’t ripped him limb from limb or dropped him to shatter on the stone below.

Spout looked at him, and though he said nothing, George was shocked to see that he shrugged. When something with a twenty-foot wingspan shrugs, it’s about as big as a shrug can get.

By all the rules about spits and taints that George had learned since he had fallen into this layer of unLondon, where statues walked and talked and flew and fought, Spout should have been dead, back on his perch, never to move again. George had seen the Gunner smithereen him with some of the last bullets from his gun. He was a taint. That meant he was dead. When taints were damaged like that, they were finished. On the other hand, spits—like the Gunner—had a stronger animating spirit holding them together. Even if they were badly damaged, as long as they could find their way back to their plinth by midnight, the time the Gunner had called “turn o’day,” they were revived. Taints didn’t have the same strong animating spirit to hold them together. They had a void at their core. Instead of a personality, they had malice and envy.

Spout was a taint, and Spout had been blasted to shards in front of his eyes. That meant he should never walk the city or swoop over its rooftops again. That meant he should no longer be a threat. That meant he was just an ornament.

Except he had swooped. He had swooped and grabbed him. And he was looking at him expectantly. And George had no idea why. Unless . . .

With a jolt, he suddenly thought he knew what Spout wanted. It wasn’t complicated. Spout wanted what the Walker had wanted. He wanted the broken dragon’s head in his pocket.

The jolt he felt was elation: a moment ago, George had had no hope and a strong conviction that there was no way out other than a long drop or a short (he hoped), nasty encounter with Spout’s ripping talons. Now he had something to exchange for his life. He didn’t mind giving up the broken piece of statuary, not if it bought him his life, not if it bought him the time to rescue the Gunner and find Edie.

“Look!” he blurted. “Look, I know what you want. Here. I’ve got it. Put me down and you can have it—Oh.”

Until his scrabbling hand found nothing where his coat pocket should be, and his mouth hit the “Oh,” his plan had been almost instant and great.

He’d bargain with Spout by threatening to toss the broken dragon’s head into the deep river below, unless the thing put him on the ground in one piece. Only, what his hand had discovered, an instant before his mind remembered, was the now presumably lethal fact that he had given his coat to Edie when the rain had set in. The coat in whose pocket he’d put the dragon’s head.

“Oh,” he repeated. “Bugger.”

“Gugger?”
echoed Spout nastily, head still cocked.

“Exactly.” George’s voice sounded as defeated as he felt.

“Gackly?”

“Yes,” said George. “Gackly.”

He was getting hysterical. He must be. There was a big sound rising like a tide inside him, and it wasn’t a scream or a yell. It was laughter, and there was nothing funny about any of this.

And then he couldn’t stop the laughter, not even as Spout adjusted his grip on George and launched himself off the top of the chimney into the great gulf of air below. Tears of mirth streamed into George’s eyes as he flew through the air, so he saw the white metal blade of the Millennium footbridge below him through a blur, as the gargoyle swooped low over the river, heading north.

“Gackly,” he choked, as the first chunk of laughter burst out of his nose in a convulsive snort. The great white dome of St. Paul’s loomed straight ahead.

“I’m guggered. . . .”