Strangeness and Charm: The Courts of the Feyre (22 page)

  "That was my best… you've torn my best…" she was crying and kicking, and at the same time couldn't get her breath. Arm-scar struggled to tear her bra apart, but the elastic proved more resilient and wouldn't tear. Eventually he just pulled the clasp apart at the back, pulling it up her arms and off while Ear-stud held her down.

  Arm-scar pinched her nipple hard. She spat at him, but he just smiled. "This is the best bit. I love this bit." He grabbed her knickers and yanked them down in a single swipe. There was a moment of silence as Alex lay in shocked nakedness.

  "You a peach, Babe." Arm-scar stood, staring down at her, while the other two grabbed her ankles and braced themselves against the mattress, stretching her wide. She watched in stunned fascination as he dropped his pants and pulled a huge erect penis out of his boxers.

  "Is it your first time, sweetness? I'll make it good for you." He grinned, flashing brown-stained teeth. Alex heaved against her captors, but they had her all stretched out. He knelt down between her legs.

  "Nooooo!"

  Her cry was echoed by a low moan from the structure of the building. Something tinkled to the floor along the gallery. A slow ticking started in the pipes where they criss-crossed the ceiling. Arm-scar glanced up and then back at her.

  He shook his head, refusing to be distracted. "Ain't no one gonna save you now, Peach."

  A sound like popping valves travelled down the gallery towards them. The fire suppression system sprayed out where it ran through the network of pipes across the ceiling. Freezing cold water rained down on them all, to the shouts and calls of the men.

  Arm-scar looked up into water raining down on them, and then down at Alex. "Makes no difference to me. A wet peach is still a peach."

  "You don't understand," said Alex, through gritted teeth. "But you will."

  Heads turned as the water started running across the floor towards them. Drops gathered into pools and pools ran into rivulets. It gathered into a wave that swept across the floor and crashed over the mattress.

  "What the…?" The man knelt between her legs faltered. He glared down at Alex. "If it's you doing this I is gonna teach you respect." He drew back his fist.

  Water ran up his legs like quicksilver, streaming up his body, defying gravity. He flicked his fist, trying to shake it off, but it clung to him like a second skin, covering him in a film of moving liquid. Too late, he realised that it was covering all of him.

  He shouted, "What the fuck?" leaping backwards, trying to flick it from him, pushing it away from his face, his nose and mouth.

  In seconds he was enveloped in a moving bubble of oily water exactly formed around him. He clamped his mouth shut against it but it ran into his nose and ears, covered his eyes. The others watched in horrified fascination as he floundered about, the water still spraying down from the pipes, adding continually to the liquid invading every orifice. He tried to scream but was choked off as the water rushed down his throat, gulping off his cry in a bubbling hiccough. He flailed his arms and fell, splashing to the floor as the water pooled around him, smothering his cries.

  Alex was suddenly released as the others grasped how wet and vulnerable they were. While their friend thrashed and clawed at his throat for air, they scrambled to their feet and backed away from her. Whatever it was they saw in her eyes. It terrified them.

  They turned as one to run, but the water was under their feet, making them slide and stumble, grabbing out to each other for support. They crashed, entangling each other, splashing into the water which covered the floor. They clawed each other for purchase, crawling over each other, shouting and swearing, trying to be the one furthest from the liquid sheet flowing towards them across the floor.

  Alex pushed herself up from the mattress, unaware of her naked state, eyes filled with a swirling blue fire as she focused her anger on them. Her hair writhed around her head as if seeking something to grasp and choke. As the thrashing from Arm-scar slowed and subsided, the water around the remaining three started to rotate into a slowly whirling pattern.

  "You miserable little shits!" she spat. "You pathetic excuses for humanity."

  "We weren't gonna do nothing," shouted Ear-stud in panic as he tried to pull his way over the other two. "It was Naylor was gonna do it."

  Alex glanced at the figure trapped under the faintly heaving bulge of water across the floor.

  "Don't worry," she said. "He got what he deserved." She paused for effect. "And now you're getting the same."

  The water rushed inwards in a spiral vortex, clinging to them where it splashed. They hollered and screamed trying to throw it off. It ran up their legs and arms, coating their skin and covering their clothes while they scrambled over each other to get away from it.

  "Enough!"

  The voice came from a figure by the stairway. Another figure gestured and a wind whipped down the gallery tearing the sheets from the windows, flooding it with light. In the glare, the water sparkled malevolently. Alex saw that there were three of them, the young woman who had spoken and two males who flanked her. They were standing at the edge of where the water sprayed from the ceiling. She realised they weren't much older than her.

  "Who are you to tell me what to do?" said Alex in a low voice that rang with threat and anger. "You didn't see what these… these… worms, were going to do."

  "But by the look of it, Naylor has paid the price," the newcomer said. "Inconvenient, but no doubt necessary." She was taller than Alex, with spiky black hair and a nosestud. Her hands were tucked into the pockets of her motorcycle jacket, and she put her head on one side, affecting disdain.

  "You said you'd protect us from the likes of her," said Buzzcut. "You said if we kept the place clear you'd see we had it to ourselves."

  Alex looked from Buzz-cut to the newcomer. "You mean these shits work for you?"

  The woman's voice was calm. "They kept unwanted visitors out in return for small favours. It looks to me like they've seriously overstepped the mark. Is Naylor dead?"

  "If he isn't he soon will be," said Alex, turning back to where Naylor was floating in the unnatural blob of liquid.

  "Leave them, Alexandra. They are beneath your notice."

  She turned back. "How do you know my name?"

  The newcomer leaned back and said something quietly to one of the young men beside her. He disappeared upstairs.

  "We've met before, though I think you were indisposed and are perhaps unable to recall. We were in a place we both know well and were glad to leave."

  Alex tried to place her. She'd thought she'd remembered everyone, but then there were the gaps between the dreams and reality. She shivered and suddenly became conscious that she was naked and cold. The spray from the ceiling slowed and then stopped, leaving only a sporadic dripping along the gallery. She clasped her hands together to stop them shaking. She knew in her head that it was shock. She had almost been raped and now she couldn't stop shaking.

  "My clothes…" she said. "Those bastards, they tore…they ripped my…"

  The one who'd gone upstairs returned with a blanket, which he passed to the young woman. She approached Alex as if she might bolt any second. "Here, put this around you. That's it." She wrapped the blanket around Alex's shoulders. She guided her as she splashed in bare feet to the stairs. The other two stepped back to allow her through.

  "Take her upstairs," she instructed the one who'd brought the blanket.

  Alex was gently ushered upwards. Behind her the unnatural mound of water holding Naylor suddenly collapsed leaving the wet body lying on the concrete. She could hear the woman issuing orders.

  "Get this stuff cleared out," she said. "I want this place looking like nothing happened."

  "What about Naylor," one of them asked.

  "Take the body and dump it somewhere no one will find it."

  Here was a mumbled protest Alex didn't hear.

  "I don't care," she replied. "You reaped the reward you deserved. You're lucky she didn't drown the lot of you. Naylor was an arrogant fool and mean with it. I, for one, will not mourn his loss."

  Alex was guided up to what looked like a cross between an apartment and a warehouse. They steered her to a sofa where she sat on the edge and shivered. She kept thinking about what had almost happened, and all the things she could have done. Why hadn't she done any of them? She could have drowned them in their own spittle, sucked all the water from their blood – any number of things. They wouldn't have even known she was there if she didn't want them to. Why hadn't she done any of them?

  The young man with the blanket brought a throw from one of the other sofas and handed it to her. "You're shaking like a leaf, girl. Here, put this over your legs."

  He sat down beside her.

  "I'm Mark," he said offering his hand, "but you can call me Sparky. That's Chipper. He don't say much." Chipper lifted a hand and then went back to looking out of the window.

  Alex untangled her hand from the blanket and shook his. It seemed an odd formality given the situation, but he gave her a toothy grin.

  "Wh… wh… who's..." She couldn't stop shivering. Clinging to the blanket, she wrapped herself tighter, trying to stop her teeth chattering.

  "Eve? Don't mind her. She's a bossy boots, but she knows some stuff. She must like you though. She don't take to strangers normally."

  "Wha… wha… this place?"

  "Oh, it used to be a squat, somewhere to chill out, you know? They used to do raves and stuff here, but Eve cleared them out. It was attracting too much attention."

  "You're from P… P… Porton Down?" She was finally warming up and getting the shivering under control.

  "That's where we met Eve. She knew Gina, and Gina came up with this place, except there was a bust up about them nicking some of Eve's stuff. As they say, Gina don't live here any more."

  "Where is she now, do you know?"

  "Gina had an accident," Eve spoke from the stairway. "She bit off more than she could chew."

  "You killed her," said Alex.

  "She took something that wasn't for her. I simply took it back."

  "And you killed her for that?"

  "You killed Naylor," Eve pointed out.

  "He was going to rape me!"

  "Sometimes it's kill or be killed. I would have thought you'd understand that."

  "She was one of us," said Alex. "She was at Porton Down."

  "She was there, but she definitely wasn't one of us. You don't steal from your friends. You don't sell you friends out for drugs, money, sex or whatever else you want. We look after each other, because no one else looks after us." She walked over to stand in front of Alex. "And what about you Alexandre?"

  "We didn't meet at Porton Down, did we? No one calls me Alexandre, except maybe my mum," she challenged.

  "We did meet, or at least I saw you there. Three girls dead. It was in your file. That's quite a tally."

  "That was an accident. How did you get access to my file?"

  "Those girls, you drowned them, like you accidentally drowned Naylor?" asked Eve.

  "How do you know about that?" asked Alex.

  Eve studied her for a moment. "When everyone else ran, I stayed. While others screamed and died I went through files looking for what I needed. Why were you looking for Gina?"

  "I dunno. I guess 'cause we're the same. We all went through the same things. I thought maybe she'd have somewhere I could hang out for a bit until I get my shit together."

  "Why don't you go home to mummy?"

  "Can't, can I? Burned that bridge."

  Eve turned away and went to stand behind Chipper, looking over his shoulder out onto the desolate estate. She stood so close that Alex wondered whether they were an item.

  "I need someone," she said, still staring out the window. "Gina died, not because she stole – though that was reason enough, but because she knew things – she'd done things. Through her treachery she proved that she would sell us out for a fix, or a bottle, or something she wanted, sooner or later. We couldn't risk that and she paid the price for her indiscretion."

  She turned away from Chipper without touching him. No brush of affection, not even a sidelong look. "If you would even dream of selling us out, Alexandre, you would be better to leave now, while you can."

  "Are you offering me a place to stay?"

  "Here? No. This place is compromised. We only came back to retrieve certain items. We'll be gone soon and you won't be able to follow us."

  "So where are you going?" asked Alex.

  "We move around, but there are places that can provide what we need. The rules, as I think you already know, do not apply to us.
Do what you wilt shall be the whole of the law
."

  "That's a line from a movie isn't it?" said Alex.

  "Hardly," said Eve. "We are engaged in a struggle that goes beyond anarchism and political structure. We will change the world itself. Our goal is more fundamental than tinkering with the system. All of that will be swept away."

  "Are you a bit bonkers?"

  Eve turned on her like a snake, her eyes narrow, her voice squeezed out between her teeth.

  "There are some who cannot encompass the vision of what we will do, and they may think it outlandish or impossible, but they are limited by their feeble imagination and stagnant ability. They are bound by convention and compromised by their own wants and needs. We are none of that, and we will change the world."

  There was a fervour in her eyes that alarmed Alex, but she could hear that Eve believed it. She glanced sideways at Sparky. He shrugged, as if it was obviously true.