The Malice (15 page)

Samael turns a corner at the end of the main street.

Tail low, Scout yelps and dashes after his master, slobber swinging back and forth from an open mouth.

The slave experiences a moment of relief, a positive blip in a life filled with despair. It does not last.

Meanwhile, unaware of the many travesties playing out around him, Samael marches on. There is no sign of Hangnail, just street after street of misery. Hunger haunts a hundred faces, sharpening eyes and hardening hearts. Scrawny bodies curl in gutters, too weak to complain. Around them scavengers collect, licking lips, stirring juices.

A round-shouldered woman calls to Samael, asking him to stop.

He ignores her.

She bustles into his path, holding out wide flat hands that sit like lollipops on bony wrists. ‘Who are you?’

He steps to the left.

She moves to match him.

Scout arrives. He does not like the way she reaches towards his master.

Samael steps to the right.

Again, she steps in his path. ‘In the name of the—’

Her sentence cuts off in a flurry of fur and teeth. As the two struggle on the floor, she manages to get out a word: ‘Demagogue.’

‘Stop,’ orders Samael.

Scout looks up, gore-caked muzzle at odds with his innocent expression, an unidentified chunk badly hidden in his mouth.

‘Leave her.’

Scout ducks his head, contrite, sloping off to gnaw on his trophy.

Samael wants to move on, leave this mess of a place far behind but something, an impulse, stops him. He leans down, examining the bite mark.

The woman props herself up to speak through pain-clenched teeth. ‘The Demagogue demands your presence.’

‘I don’t answer to the Demagogue.’

She laughs, despite her discomfort. ‘Of course you do. We all do.’

‘I’m just passing through.’

‘It doesn’t matter what you were doing or where you were going. You’re off to see the Demagogue.’ She offers him her hand. ‘Now lift me up will you? If we’re late, neither of us will get to see the dawn.’

Hunters gather, lean strips of shadow detaching themselves from the greater darkness. One by one they assemble on the edge of the forest of stalks, creeping forward under the stars. Wonderland looms before them. All know the history of the place, the grim and gory stories. Hearts flutter at the thought of them, bowels stir.

‘We should go back,’ whispers one.

‘Ssh!’ says another.

‘We lost Jacks to the buzzers. We ain’t going back to the First empty-handed.’ Adds a third.

The others have the good sense to stay quiet.

A hunter crouches down, fingers probing the churned earth. Tracks are found, two pairs of human feet and a set of hoof prints, small. He inches forward, led by the marks until hands reach smooth stone. He sighs. ‘They went in. Another feast for the Wonderland.’

‘That’s it then,’ says their leader, ‘we’re too late.’

Shadows retreat, turning for home.

They are nearly invisible again when a belch rings out, rounded and rich. A stifled giggle follows.

The shadows pause, fanning out, searching. They find a piece of panelling leaning against a wall, and a figure propped up behind it. As they draw closer to the source of the sound they hear a woman’s voice, firm.

‘I’m dead. I’m dead because of a damned burp.’ A laugh bursts from her mouth. Four of the hunters move into position around her. ‘It’s not funny. It’s not!’ She giggles again. ‘Stop laughing! You’re a servant of the Winged Eye on a sacred mission. Act like one!’

The hunters exchange glances. Several shrug. The nearest one pulls away the cover.

Duet sits as she was left, medicine bag in her lap, sword laying parallel to her leg, unsheathed.

Before the hunters can strike, brightness shines from her visor, blinding, cutting a wedge from the nighttime. The closest to her gasp, clutching at faces and raising their arms. Those further back aim dartbows, trying to thread shots between their friends.

Metal spines spit through the air, finding new homes in the wall and Duet’s armour. A few catch the flailing limbs of dazzled hunters, burrowing deeper to slip toxins into bloodstreams, paralysing, swift.

‘I’m not –’ she begins, hacking at the legs of the two nearest ‘– going to –’ In her weakened state, strikes that would dismember, merely cut deep. ‘Pitiful!’ she shouts, interrupting herself. ‘Is that the best you can do? You’ve always been a disappointment to us.’ Duet shakes her head. ‘Shut up, traitor. You’re not here. I killed you! Shut up!’

Two hunters scream, hobbling out of range, the others regroup, quickly recovering from their initial shock. Duet rages in the background, monologuing while they confer.

‘Let’s leave her,’ hisses one.

‘Yeah,’ says the second. ‘Wonderland’s already taken her mind. It’ll be coming back to take her body. That’s how it is! That’s how it happened to my mother’s father’s brother! It ain’t gonna happen to me.’

The third is unimpressed. ‘Crap to your stories and crap on your ancestors. We’re bringing home a prize. Look at her, she’s lost it. She can’t even get up. We can take her if we move together.’

Dartbows are swapped for knives and short sticks. As a pack now, the hunters reengage.

Duet watches them, letting her sword tip rest on the ground. ‘I think I can take two with me. Or maybe three. Two? Three? I’m not sure.’ A giggle forces its way out and then she half sings, ‘Two or three, three or four, I’m altogether not quite sure.’ She slaps herself on the side of the head with her free hand. ‘Why can’t I stop talking? And why don’t these sorry fucks get on with it!’

The lead hunter raises his hand. ‘On three. One … two …’

A new arrival gives him pause. Something approaches fast from Wonderland, footsteps sounding like gunshots, and behind them, a tall, robed shape, inhuman eyes flashing from a deep hood.

‘… shit it!’

Though unorthodox, the order is clear enough. The hunters flee, dispersing quickly into pairs, diving back to the protection of the stalk forest.

Duet rolls her head towards the newcomers. Vesper skids to a stop, blinking down at her. ‘Duet, you’re alive!’

‘I wish I wasn’t.’

‘Don’t say that.’

‘I can’t help it. It’s like my mouth’s got a mind of its own.’ Confusion appears on Vesper’s face. A moment later, the kid catches up. ‘It’s probably the pills I took while I was waiting. Damn, didn’t mean to say that.’

‘Pills? How many?’

She laughs again, hysteria catching around the edges. ‘I don’t know! I was waiting for hours and hours. A lot. More than’s safe. Enough that I could die or go a funny colour. Maybe I’ll do both. That seems to be the way my life is now. For the love of the Eye, shut me up, I can’t bear myself!’

The kid begins to back away.

Maintaining a more dignified pace, Neer finally reaches the group.

Duet adjusts the grip on her sword. ‘Vesper, get behind me!’

Neer tuts. ‘Really, there’s no need for that. I’m here to help you.’

‘Damn you and damn your help, monster!’

Vesper tries to think of something to say, fails.

‘As I explained to your friend here, my situation is not what you expect. I’m human like you are, just—’

‘Shut up! Just shut up!’ Duet pulls herself up the wall, grunting as she stands. ‘Look at yourself! Born with those eyes, were you?’

The glowing pupils narrow. ‘You and I are about to have a misunderstanding.’

Duet’s next words are interrupted by a burp. ‘Not again!’ she wails. ‘Not now!’ She raises her sword, trying to threaten, then drops it, hands required to tear free her visor. As she doubles over, the face plate sails over her shoulder, bouncing twice before settling.

Vomit splashes hot and wet and acrid. Words and laughter come together, discordant. ‘Urgh! Huh, huh, huh! It hurts! Bleaaarch!’ There is another round of swearing and laughing, babbling moist words and blowing sicky bubbles and then, sudden, dramatic, she passes out.

Within the secret tunnels beneath Wonderland, deep in the Don’t Go, there is a room. The room is full of instruments, proudly displayed on racks, ordered by size and function. A slab of plastic is suspended in the middle of the room, capable of rising or falling, of turning, of tilting.

Duet is strapped to the slab, stripped of armour and consciousness. Neer leans over her, held steady on her tripod of ivory. Initial investigations bring tuts of disapproval.

Vesper sits in a corner, chewing on a nail. The kid sleeps across her feet. ‘Do you think you can help her?’

‘My dear young girl,’ she replies without looking up. ‘I have spent a lifetime merging the living with the dead, expanding the very boundaries of life’s definitions.’

‘But do you think you can help her?’

‘Yes, I’ve just said so, haven’t I? I was trusted to carve the paths in the boneways above our heads. I laid the road for the Uncivil’s essence to flow. I’m sure I can manage a few cracked and broken ribs.’

The smartcast is removed. New skin has formed over old wounds, stretched tight in places by jagged bones. ‘No, no, no. This won’t do. This won’t do at all.’ She picks up a scalpel and readies it, an inch above Duet’s body. Eyes close and her left hand moves next to her right, fingers curling into a fist. Over the knuckle of her middle finger, a seam in the old leather opens, unveiling a third eye.

One hand guides the other and she begins to operate.

Blood runs down the face of the slab, funnelled along grooves into holes, stashed away for future projects.

‘Living subjects are so much messier than the dead. The Necroneers used to be so artful in preparing the limbs. Stitching and gluing so smart as to become decoration! Ah yes, they were good times. Gone now.’

‘Were there lots of you?’

‘Oh yes. From the collectors at the bottom, to the cleaners and the pre-ops, to my own order. I’m not sure how many we numbered in total. Always changing, you see. We grew as the Uncivil did, recruiting in a rush to keep pace with her.’ Red lines draw four doors on Duet’s belly. Neer opens them all, unmoved by new smells rising, clogging the air.

Vesper covers her mouth, presses harder against the wall. ‘What happened to them?’

‘They died. Terrible waste it was. You see, when the Uncivil was ended there was nobody to replace the essence animating our augmentations. When it faded away, undead limbs became dead and rotten. And nothing spreads so fast as rot it seems.’

‘What about amputation?’

‘It’s not just about removing an arm or a tail. Many of us had been altered at the deepest levels.’ Vesper says nothing, a silent confession of bewilderment. ‘The bonds weren’t neat, they were intertwined with our very essence. You can’t draw a line around something like that and cut it. And in any case, by the time we’d stopped grieving, it was too late. Wonderland was dead and the enlightenment gone with it. Within days the economy had collapsed and people fell on each other like hungry dogs.’

‘Oh.’

A broken rib is eased back into position. A fragment, half hanging, sharp, is removed. She holds it up, closing her knuckle eye and opening her other two, bone limbs carrying her to a cabinet. On the other side are a collection of skeletons, each one exploded slightly, the gaps filled with careful documentation. Comparisons are made, several times she comes back to a particular match, shaking her head.

‘Ah well, it will have to do. Ugly measures for ugly times.’

Long before she is finished, Vesper sleeps. Soon after, the sword stirs, disturbed by something. Wings part and its eye swivels to point south, staring into other places, troubled, before turning its glare upon the sleeping girl.

The work continues. Bone grafts are made and applied, cracks filled with a milky jelly. Swelling is eased, skin folded back into place, tied off neatly with black thread that swirls over pale skin like calligraphy.

Hours pass and Vesper wakes to the smell of soup. She is not in the same place she fell asleep.

The walls are piled high with scribblings, tiny writing crammed onto chunks of slate and recycled lids, on treated skins, even the walls themselves. A stream of consciousness laid bare. Secrets and dreams writ large for any who care to read them.

All Vesper sees is the warm bowl and the kid’s tongue, lapping. ‘Hey!’ she says, sitting up on the thin mattress to push the kid away. To her surprise, the kid pushes back, head firm against her chest, knocking her back down.

The kid sniffs then resumes his feast.

From the doorway, Neer chuckles. ‘Not to worry, there’s plenty more where that came from.’

‘It smells great. What’s it called?’

‘Compound three.’

‘What’s in it?’

‘Compound three.’

‘Oh.’

Neer passes the girl a second bowl of soup. This one is rectangular, cut from the base of a larger container. Vesper takes it and eats, adding her own sounds to the kid’s happy grunts.

Neer waits until they are nearly finished. ‘We should talk about your friend.’

Vesper looks up, mouth still full. ‘Mmm?’ She swallows. ‘What happened? Did you save her?’

‘It was a trivial operation but during it I observed several things of interest. What can you tell me about her?’

‘I …’ She pauses. ‘I think you should ask her.’

There is a flash of green, brief, but when Neer speaks again, her voice is level. ‘She’s been operated on before, extensively. The techniques are strange to me but not so much that I can’t guess their intent.’ She leans closer and Vesper instinctively does the same. ‘She’s one of those Harmonised isn’t she?’

The hesitation is only slight this time. ‘Yes.’

‘I knew it! Her essence has been attuned to another’s. Her face and body too I’d wager. Where’s the other one?’

‘Dead.’

‘Hmm. I think your friend is going to struggle.’

‘Me too.’

‘She probably isn’t going to be long for this world.’

Vesper looks at her, hopeful. ‘Can you help her?’

‘I’ve already done all I can. Assuming you still want to leave, that is. If you and your friend were to stay for the long-term, I might be able to. I’d very much like to try.’

‘How long does she have?’

‘Try to understand. Half of her is gone. Physically, she is intact but her mind and soul,’ Neer spreads her hands, ‘are fading. Her essence is trying to find what’s been lost. Each time it reaches out, a little more fades away. I’d give her a few months. Perhaps a year.’

‘But we can’t stay. We have a mission.’

‘That’s a shame. I’d hate to be the one to watch her degenerate.’ She straightens. ‘But if you have to go, I suppose the sacrifice has to be made.’

‘Wait. I don’t know. I’m not sure what to do.’

‘It really isn’t up to me. What would she want?’

‘I think she’d want to go.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘No.’ Vesper frowns, gets up. ‘I’m going to talk to her.’