Jack of Ravens (60 page)

‘That was an alien?’ Stimson said in confusion.

‘A god. The gods walk amongst us. Aren’t we lucky?’ Doctor Jay said wryly.

Stimson gazed at his notebook blankly. ‘This is beyond crazy. Who’s going to believe that?’ He stalked off to his car.

‘What are the Extinction Shears?’ Church asked.

‘A legacy,’ Niamh replied. ‘They existed long before my people came to the Far Lands. Some say they were created by the gods above the gods themselves. They have the power to cut through the very fabric of Existence.’

‘If they’re so powerful, what are they doing here?’

‘They went missing long ago. None know where they are.’ She clutched at Church’s hand. ‘If the Enemy uses them to cut through the Blue Fire, it will sever us all from Existence. Everything will be under the control of the Void for all time.’

20

Haight-Ashbury was like a medieval street fair. People swarmed across the streets in outrageously colourful clothes, with jugglers, mimes and musicians moving amongst them. Many were on some drug or other, acting strangely and disconnected from the behaviour of straight society. It was hardly surprising that Church had not been aware of the people from the Far Lands who had made their home there. In the Haight, their strangeness was the norm. Church once again encountered the eerie puppeteer whose
marionettes moved without strings, but when Church approached him he quickly packed up his stall and disappeared into the crowds.

Church and Niamh questioned as many as they could about the whereabouts of the Extinction Shears, without any luck. Their investigation had to be conducted surreptitiously, for the spider-people and their agents were everywhere – brutal police officers, men in dark suits who could have been FBI or government agents, violent criminals who raped and robbed and beat up all who got in their way.

By October, the freewheeling mood in the Haight had changed irrevocably. Ice caught up with Church as he questioned one of the Tuatha Dé Danann near the entrance to Buena Vista Park. ‘Man, you don’t want to go back there. There’s some kind of mass protest. Everyone’s been pissed since the drugs bust on the Dead house. It’s going to get ugly.’

‘All right. I’m done here. We’re getting nowhere.’

‘One other thing.’ Ice held up a jewel that sang a strange, lilting song whenever he pressed it.

Church recognised its otherworldly nature. ‘Where’d you get that?’

‘Took it off a kid a couple of blocks back. Told me he lifted it from some stall in Hippie Hill. The Market of Wishful Spirit, he called it.’

Church recalled the bizarre travelling market he had seen in the Court of the Soaring Spirit. ‘What are they doing here?’

‘The kids said the market comes and goes, like magic. I thought he was tripping.’

They bypassed the disturbance at the Haight-Ashbury intersection to get to Hippie Hill, the lower part of Golden Gate Park that swarmed with beggars and the homeless.

As they passed through the crowds, the quality of the light changed. Mist drifted in and suddenly the air was filled with the aromas of perfumes and spices. They broke through the mist to find a great many stalls populated by people who were unmistakably not of this world. Their odd and grotesque appearances were often masked by wide-brimmed hats and cloaks, medieval gowns or Elizabethan doublets. To a person, their faces had a waxy sheen that made them look like masks over their real faces.

A few hippies passed amongst the stalls in a trance, beckoned here and there by the owners, and offered delights or nightmares disguised as such.

Church moved through the stalls, asking one purveyor after another about the Extinction Shears. Finally he came to a skeletal man in a black robe made of tatters who rubbed his hands together obsequiously when Church questioned him.

‘Ah, so sorry. Just sold,’ he said. ‘But I can offer you even greater wonders …’ From the mass of items on his stall, he plucked a glass globe that appeared to have a world at its centre.

‘Who bought the Shears?’ Church snapped.

‘A Fragile Creature.’

‘We’ll never find him,’ Ice said.

‘Perhaps you can.’ The trader’s eyes glittered. He picked up a small hand mirror; in its centre, a faint light shimmered like a torch on the horizon. ‘Follow the light and it will lead you to your heart’s desire. Yours for just a small price … a very small price.’

Church glanced at Ice. The Hell’s Angel snatched the mirror and they ran from the market as fast as they could, the cries of the trader rising up behind them.

21

‘We’ve got to get to the poor bastard before the Enemy finds him. Or before he tries to use this bargain he’s picked up and accidentally ends all Existence,’ Church said as they exited the park. ‘You get the others and meet me back at the house.’

Ice headed towards the centre of the Haight while Church held the mirror before him. The light was no longer visible in the glass, but as he turned the mirror it slipped back into view. He moved towards it.

22

Night was falling as Ice reached the chaos that had erupted at the intersection of Haight and Ashbury. A cacophony of screams and shouts thundered in the air as the heaving crowd surged in panic. Police were all around and tear gas drifted on the breeze.

Grace and Doctor Jay came running up with a young man with short hair, horn-rimmed glasses and a University of Berkeley T-shirt, and a woman with long auburn hair and an abundance of beads and bangles.

‘They’re killing us out there,’ Grace said breathlessly.

‘They’re making their move tonight. They’re going to catch us all in one go,’ Doctor Jay added.

Ice nodded to the new arrivals. ‘These the last two?’

‘James and Deanna.’ Grace looked over her shoulder at the seething crowd.

Ice could already feel his affinity for the two. In their faces he saw confidence and hardly any fear despite their situation. ‘Okay, that’s a full packet. Where are the others?’

‘Gabe’s taking photos. Marcy’s lost it. She’s on the front line, stoning the cops. Tom and Niamh are trying to drag her away,’ Grace said.

‘Let’s help them. We have to return to the house.’

They pushed their way back into the crowd as a wave of movement and screams came from their right. Ice stood his ground as a terrified mob washed around him. Behind them staggered five men and women clutching their faces where weeping sores were rapidly blooming.

And behind them, floating two feet above the sidewalk, was a voluptuous woman, nearly naked apart from a few wisps of gossamer veil. Her black hair flowed out all around a terrible face with wide, staring eyes and enormous fangs that looked sharp enough to tear off a man’s arm. Her fingers and toes ended in jagged claws.

A young woman ran by, so busy looking over her shoulder at the police that she didn’t see what she was passing. With rattlesnake speed, the floating thing lashed out and caught the woman across the side of the face with her claws. Instantly, the woman faltered. Her shock turned to discomfort and then agony as the sores began to appear.

‘What the hell is that?’ Ice said.

‘Rangda.’ Doctor Jay’s sunglasses made him impassive. ‘The demon-queen of Bali. Spreads plague. Leads an army of evil witches.’

‘You read too many books,’ Ice growled. He herded them back into the crowd as Rangda darted forward.

‘The police aren’t going to let us out of here,’ Grace squealed. ‘That thing’s going to pick us off one by one.’

‘We’ll get out,’ Ice said. Church is counting on us. We don’t let him down, you hear?’

The crowd swallowed them up and the screams grew louder.

23

The light in the mirror blazed so brightly that Church could barely look into it. He was outside one of the Victorian mansions near the Grateful Dead’s house that had been raided only four nights earlier. He could already tell something was wrong. The front door hung on twisted hinges and the hall light blazed out into the night.

He entered cautiously. A man lay dead on the stairs, his throat torn out. On the first-floor landing, a woman hung over the banister, both eyes missing. His heart pounding, Church followed the trail of blood to a door on the second floor. It swung open at Church’s fingertips.

The first thing he saw was writing on the walls in blood:
Helter Skelter. Death to Pigs
.

The Libertarian was admiring his handiwork. He turned to Church blithely. ‘Just getting in a little practice for nineteen sixty-nine. Or repeating what I will do then, depending on your point of view. Charlie’s spelling is atrocious.’

A ponytailed man with sunglasses sat on the sofa as if watching TV, a hole punched through his chest to where his heart had once been. The missing organ sat on a side table next to a lava lamp.

‘You’ve got the Shears,’ Church said flatly.

‘There was never any doubt. We’ve been searching for them for a long, long time, Mr Churchill.’ He dipped into the inside pocket of his long, black coat and pulled out what at first looked like a blinding white light. As Church forced himself to peer into it, he saw something that resembled a giant crystal snowflake, and then a series of circling orbs, and finally a pair of gold shears with ornate handles.

The Libertarian smiled at Church’s unease. ‘Oh, don’t worry, I have no intention of using them now. One wrong snip and the whole thing could start to unravel. We will take our time, ensure everything is just right, safe for us, not so for you, and then …’ He made a snipping motion with two fingers of his free hand. ‘Things fall apart. The centre cannot hold.’

Knowing he had no choice, Church advanced. The Libertarian smiled mockingly just as Church saw movement in the corner of his eye. Hands like dry wood clutched at his wrist before an arm moved across his throat. In the mirror opposite he could see Etain’s dead eyes staring back at him. The loamy smell of her filled his nostrils.

‘Despite what you might think, we really do know what we are doing.’ The Libertarian strode to the door and paused. ‘Oh – remember when we met not so very long ago in that cold city? I told you then what would happen if you ever chose to re-enter the game.’

‘Don’t hurt Gabe and Marcy.’ Church strained in Etain’s grip. ‘They’ve got nothing to do with this.’

‘I can’t go back on my word,’ the Libertarian said indignantly. ‘Well, perhaps just one of them. I shall attend to that piece of business before I take a very long flight to the East. Have to see how our boys are getting on scaring up a few Fabulous Beasts with their napalm.’

Church could hear him humming merrily as he walked down the stairs. Etain closed the crook of her elbow tighter around Church’s throat. In the mirror, her unblinking stare never left his face.

‘Etain, I’m really sorry about what happened to you,’ Church said hoarsely. ‘I don’t know if you can hear me, but I wanted to say that. There hasn’t been a day gone by when I haven’t regretted what Veitch did to you, or felt guilty for getting you into it.’

Etain didn’t register a flicker of emotion.

‘But I can’t go on beating myself up over that. There’s too much at stake now and too many people relying on me. I hope wherever you are you understand that.’

While he was talking, Church had been shifting his position. He drove backwards with all his weight and smashed Etain into the wall, then pulled
forward and did it again. While she was off-balance, Church jackknifed at the waist. Etain flew over his shoulder and crashed into the TV set. Amidst the flash and the sparks there was the smell of burning dead flesh.

Church didn’t wait to see the results. He was soon racing into the night to save his friends.

24

The panic at the intersection had subsided when the police allowed some of the crowd to flow up Ashbury. Unmarked vans were already being loaded with body bags containing the plague victims. The demon-queen was gone.

Church found Ice and Grace helping some of the people who had been hurt in the crush.

‘Bummer of a way to end the Summer of Love,’ Grace said.

Gabe came up, dismayed. ‘The fascist pigs took my camera,’ he said.

‘Where’s Marcy?’ Church looked around, then pushed his way through the crowd in time to see Marcy being dragged into the back of a black car with smoked windows. The Libertarian saw Church, nodded and climbed in after her before the car sped swiftly away.

25

Back at the apartment, Gabe was beyond consoling. Church left him to Niamh’s ministrations while he consulted with Tom.

‘You did your best,’ Tom said.

‘It’s not over,’ Church responded defiantly.

‘If they have the Extinction Shears, it really is. Existence will be remade in the image of the Void for all time. No ebb and flow of hope against despair, no Blue Fire to hold back the dark. We will live in the best of all possible worlds, and the best of all worlds will be the worst imaginable.’ Tom sat on the edge of the bed, staring into the middle distance.

‘The Libertarian wasn’t planning to use them straight away. Now that the Enemy has them, they can take their time. And if the Shears are as powerful as everybody says, they can’t afford to rush into using them blindly.’