The Crooked Letter (13 page)

Something short and squat-featured appeared in his path, arms spread wide to obstruct him. He cursed it — they had cut around the block in front of him! — and used his mass to force past it, but its small hands gripped tight, clung to his shirt, and tried to tangle its legs in his. He flailed at it, but was unable to shake it loose. He could hear it grunting as it clung to him, surprisingly heavy and strong for something no larger than a child. Another sprang at him from the shadows, then another. He found himself overwhelmed by the creatures. He stumbled, fell, and couldn’t get his legs back under himself.

They pinned his arms and rolled him onto his back. A larger version of the things, more than human-sized and clad in a long charcoal greatcoat with a black woollen cap low over its brows, loomed over him. Shaped like a sullen man with lumpy features, it tugged off the cap to reveal a bald, egg-like head. It clicked its fingers. Hadrian’s captors fell away. He scrambled backwards, into a wall.

The owner of the boots strode into view. A middle-aged woman with spiky white hair and cappuccino skin, she barely reached the shoulders of the man beside her. She was dressed in practical black pants and a high-necked grey wool jumper. Her eyes matched the jumper, with no discernible colour. Her expression was aloof but not uninterested.

‘Get up,’ she said, ‘and get in the car.’

‘Why should I?’

She smiled, and her face took on an entirely new cast. It showed appreciation of a joke he hadn’t intended.

With one hand, she tossed something into his lap. ‘I don’t think you have any choice now, Seth.’

He caught the object automatically. It was the stone he had dropped when it had suddenly burned him. The stone that had given him away.

‘I’m not Seth,’ he said as he had many times in his life. ‘I’m Hadrian.’

‘Well.’ Her smiled only widened. ‘I had a fifty per cent chance of —’

He got no further. The ground jumped beneath them, as though the Earth had lurched in its orbit. The woman staggered back a step and the enormous man steadied her. The buildings on either side of them rocked on their foundations, emitting a thousand tiny noises as brick, glass and aluminum frames shifted slightly. Dust rained down on them.

The woman regained her balance and looked up at the distant rooftops. ‘It’s started.’ She stepped forward and held her right hand out and down. ‘My name is Kybele, Hadrian. You aren’t safe here. You’ll never be safe in the city, unless you’re with me.’

‘Safe from whom?’

Kybele wiggled her fingers in an unmistakable hurry-up. ‘If you get moving, I’ll explain. You’re in no danger from me, I swear.’

Hadrian hadn’t forgotten the head, still lying in a sticky pool by the dumpster. The ground shuddered beneath them with less violence than before, but for longer.

‘You killed Locyta?’

‘No, but I’ll admit to wanting to at times. Get in the car, Hadrian, or I’ll have my friends here carry you.’

The smile was gone now, and became a frown as the ground rocked a third time. The buildings rattled again. Something smashed. Only then did Hadrian stop to think about the danger of being in a cramped alleyway during an earthquake. The woman, whoever she was, was risking her life by lingering to offer him help. If she’d wanted to take him by force, as she had implied, she could have done it easily.

He took Kybele’s hand — noting the cool, dry texture of her skin and a wide, beaten gold bracelet around her wrist — and let himself be pulled upright. Their eyes ended up at the same level. Hers were so grey they resembled stone.

I’m going to regret this,
he thought as, in a rush of feet and limbs, the bizarre procession guided him to the massive vehicle and hurried him inside.

* * * *

The interior of the car, large though it was, was thick with the licorice smell of the Bes, the half-sized creatures who had pinned him to the ground. Squat, heavy-set and of indeterminate sex, four of them shared the back seat with the larger version, the one Kybele called ‘the Galloi’. Hadrian sat with her, behind an enormous dashboard that appeared to have been carved from a single piece of ivory. The windshield was wider than he was long, and the bonnet seemed to go on forever.

The giant car swam under Kybele’s steady hand like a killer whale through the darkening city, avoiding streets blocked by abandoned trucks or traffic jams. Steep, narrow roads wound around the legs of elevated freeways and train tracks, following intricate paths that Hadrian could never have retraced. Empty footbridges dangled banners proclaiming something in an alphabet he didn’t recognise.

He felt as though he was dreaming: at any moment he might be back on the floor of the hotel, prior to smashed windows, the chase through the alleys and Locyta’s severed head hitting the ground with a wet thud. Or in Sweden, going out for a walk with Seth then doubling back to be with Ellis ...

Your brother is dead.

Your brother is alive.

He didn’t know what to believe any more.

Kybele watched him out of the corner of her eye as she drove. The speedometer cast a ghastly green glow across her face. It was she who broke the silence.

‘I need you to tell me everything that has happened to you since your brother died. And before that, too. Leave nothing out, no matter how inconsequential it might seem.’

Hadrian shook his head with underwater slowness. He felt as fragile as a soap bubble on the verge of collapse.

‘There’s nothing to be frightened of,’ she insisted. ‘I mean you no harm.’

‘Why should I believe you?’

‘If I’d wanted you dead I could have killed you the moment I laid eyes on you.’

‘Like you killed Locyta?’

‘I told you: I didn’t kill him,’ she said. ‘He had his uses sometimes.’

The car swept around a corner, catching a human-shaped figure square in its powerful headlights. Kybele braked sharply, and the thing flinched. Its steps were leaden, as though dragging heavy weights behind its heels; its head bent forward and its arms swung with effort. It looked like someone walking determinedly through ankle-deep water against a heavy wind.

Kybele swung the wheel to go past it. Hadrian expected its features to resolve as it went by, but they did not. It was a walking blur, a hole in the dark background.

Then it was gone, lurching zombie-like up the street behind them.

‘What was that?’ His heart was suddenly racing. For a moment he had thought it was the ghost of his brother.

‘A shade.’

‘Is it dangerous?’

‘As dangerous as anything you’re likely to meet out here. Its kind rarely attack if unprovoked, for we have little they desire. But they can be clumsy. An idiot god can be as damaging as a clever one.’

His mind tripped over that comment, remembering what Pukje had said about monsters. ‘That was a god?’

She chuckled low in her throat. ‘No, but just about everything that’s not human has been worshipped by you humans at some point. Shades — and me — included.’

‘Who are you?’

‘I told you. I’m Kybele.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, feeling vagueness slip over him again. ‘I don’t know what that means.’

‘Well, the Phrygians used to call me the Great Mother. I was originally the goddess of the Earth and its caverns, but later I graduated to towns and cities. Moving up with your species, if you like; we’ve always had a lot in common.’ She assessed him out of the corner of her eye. ‘Doesn’t anyone study the classics any more?’

They passed a street sign written in Chinese, then another. He assumed at first that the car was passing through the local version of Chinatown, but a quick glance at the numberplates of abandoned cars immediately ruled out that possibility. They were in Chinese too, as were the window displays, and the posters, and the billboards ...

The shaking of the ground had lessened not long after Kybele had picked him up. He seemed to feel it again. All this talk of gods and goddesses made him dull-witted, as though all the oxygen had been sucked out of the car.

‘Tell me how you came to be here, Hadrian,’ Kybele repeated, ‘and in return I’ll explain. It looks to me like you need to understand the world a little better.’

Hadrian swallowed his frustration and fear and did as he was told. Beginning with the train and the Swede, he described waking in the hospital and his interview with Lascowicz, then finding Seth’s body and his escape from the hospital.

‘Volker Lascowicz. Is that what he’s calling himself now?’ she said. ‘And Neith Bechard, too. The energumen are siding against me. I should have guessed.’

‘Energu— what?’

‘Some people are more than they seem, although even they might not know it. Neith Bechard is one such. All his life, he has been linked to a creature in the Second Realm, a devel called Aldinach. This devel whispered to him in his sleep, gave him visions in the dead of night. Now, though, it is growing stronger; Bechard has become a demoniac, two minds in one body. They are bonded together, possessed by each other, one might say, and their strength will only increase.

‘Lascowicz is the same, only his real name is Vilkata, not Volker. His rider is a daktyloi called Upuaut, one of the lords of the dead of ancient Abyddos. You encountered it in the hospital: its form is that of a giant wolf.

‘You should know that it was probably Lascowicz who killed Locyta. The Wolf would have had no use for him once he had nothing left to reveal.’

Hadrian shivered, remembering the sound of claws tearing at linoleum. Not a police dog, then. Her explanation was even more outlandish. The detective had interrogated, unnerved and threatened, and his personality had changed in just hours, but Hadrian had never imagined him capable of tearing someone’s head off.

Possessed by a devil,
he thought to himself.
Am I really accepting this?

For a moment, his grip on the situation wavered. Monsters, gods, strange creatures chasing him in the night — it was entirely possible that Kybele was crazy in the same way as Pukje, and that he was crazy for listening to them. But it all made a seductive kind of sense.

Although he didn’t know whether he could trust Kybele, he was one hundred per cent certain that he didn’t want to meet any of these energumen again.

Give in now and deny us the pleasure of hunting yon. I dare you.

He forced himself to keep talking. When he described the creature that had rescued him from Lascowicz and Bechard, she nodded impatiently.

‘Yes, yes. I knew Pukje had his pointy nose in this somewhere, right up to his cheeks.’ She indicated the notched stone sitting on the seat between them, where he had dropped it. ‘This is one of his. He led you to me.’

‘He’s on your side?’

She barked a short laugh. ‘I have allegiances with most of the duergar clans. Pukje doesn’t belong to any of them now, except when it suits him. You’d do well to remember that.’ The steering wheel spun smoothly through her strong hands. ‘Don’t let the imp do you any favours if you can avoid it. It’ll cost you.’

Hadrian nodded, although Pukje’s words,
You can owe me,
suddenly took on a sinister cast.
I’ll be back. That’s a promise.

Lastly, he told her about the retrieval of Seth’s bone and his determination to find Ellie, if she were still alive.

‘It’s not Ellie’s fault she got caught up in this,’ he concluded. ‘I need to know that she’s okay.’ His efforts to accomplish this had been paltry so far. He was the first to admit it. ‘Can you help me?’

‘That depends. You have a deep connection with this woman?’

‘Yes.’

‘And your brother did, too?’

He didn’t see the point in denying it, even though talking about it still brought a raft of awkward emotions to the surface.

‘Yes. I have to find her.’

‘Well, I’ll see what we can do. She may yet live.’

Hope stirred in him for the first time. ‘You will help me?’

‘Of course, Hadrian. I can’t very well leave you out here on your own. You wouldn’t last another day.’

‘What can I do?’

‘Don’t worry about that. For now, I suggest you concentrate on regaining your strength. We’ll get you some food. There may be precious little opportunity later to sit back and relax.’

‘I can’t relax,’ he said. ‘I need to know what we’re doing to find her, where we’re going.’

‘We’re going to where we need to be. Nothing more and nothing less.’

‘But where is that? What will we do when we get there?’

‘Questions, questions ...’ She tut-tutted and nudged the car up a gear. ‘The city is my place, Hadrian. Its black roads and caverns belong to me, and I am stronger for the way it is changing. My networks are merging; my senses ring in ways I haven’t felt for a long, long time. I love this world, but it’s been a bitter and cold one since the last Cataclysm. At last, the heat is returning. I feel my blood quickening. It’s like spring, Hadrian. Can you feel it too?’

He opened his mouth to protest that he could feel nothing of the sort. The darkness behind his lids still held flashes of gaping wounds and mouths open in silent screams. That wasn’t a good thing. It was awful.

He wrenched his gaze away, acutely conscious of the Galloi and the Bes watching silently from the back. Outside, the streets were grim and gloomy. Deep shadows sliced the world into segments, a crazy Escher grid with no units, no axes and no clear meaning. Yet, he did sense meaning to it. There was something behind it that hadn’t been there before.

An echo of Seth teased him, danced like a dream on the edge of consciousness.

‘What,’ he asked, ‘do you mean by “the last Cataclysm”?’

She smiled.

‘Sit back and let me drive for a spell,’ she said. ‘I have to concentrate. Then I’ll tell you everything you need to know. It’s quite a story.’

He nodded and did as he was told. For the time being, he had nothing to lose.

* * * *