The Glass God (3 page)

Sammy opened his mouth to say something, probably obscene, when a flicker of movement around the lamppost caught his eye. It caught Sharon’s attention, too, for she suddenly became very still and stiff, eyes locked on the dull metal framed beneath its own yellow glow. There again – a tiny pulse of something that seemed to move through the frame itself, as if the post were a liquid rather than a solid, a ripple spreading out from an invisible join in the smooth, galvanised steel.

Sharon took a cautious step closer. Another ripple, greater this time, the waves clearly shimmering across the surface of the lamppost. She reached out a cautious hand towards it, felt a cold too deep and sharp and localised to be real, drew in a slow, shaky breath, and brushed the metal with the tips of her fingers.

A hand shot out.

It came from the metal itself, and was of the metal, a hand wrapped in silver-steel skin, threaded with wires for veins, glass for nails; it came straight out of the spine of the post and locked itself round Sharon’s wrist like a vice. She yelped and tried to pull away, but it clung on tight, visible to just past its own wrist. Thin yellow bursts of electric light rushed through it like pulses of blood. “Sammy!” wailed the shaman.

But the goblin just shrugged. “Think of it like… an
intervention
.”

The wrist began to draw back into the lamppost, pulling Sharon’s hand with it.

“Sammy, if I end up half lamppost, you’ll never hear the end of it!”

“What’s new?”

“
Sammy!
”

The hand gave a sudden tug, drawing right back into the lamppost, and, with a great heave of strength and a shuddering of liquid metal, it pulled Sharon through after it.

There was a moment of uncertainty.

Sharon had an impression of the lamppost splitting open down the middle, a great black mouth full of humming and wires, the hand vanishing into its depths, her wrist trapped within it. It seemed that the darkness stretched and spread around her, curling out and then back in, smothering her, before, with a great, cold lurch, it swallowed her up.

Darkness.

Sharon opened her eyes.

Then closed them again.

She wasn’t at all sure she was enjoying her own sense data, and wanted it to consider if this was really what they meant to tell her brain.

She risked opening her eyes again and, yes, there was no getting round it, she was inside a lamppost. And it was vast. Great cliffs of metal, huge humming cables, flashing bursts of brilliant streetlight; she was in a lamppost and it was a tower, a majestic tower heading to a point of yellow light overhead that shone through the metal interior like a private star. There was a continual buzz and hiss of electricity, and, as she turned to inspect her surroundings, beneath her feet the floor crackled and sparked.

There was no sign of an exit, but right now this was, she concluded a low priority. She turned back to face where she’d begun, and the dryad was there instantly, a city dryad: skin of steel, hair of flowing, billowing copper, body pulsing with yellow light, eyes curved with the Perspex shell that framed a streetlight bulb. At some point in their history, the old dryads of the forests had realised that trees weren’t such reliable homes any more, and gone in search of a new forest to claim for their own; and what forests the cities had become, and how welcoming they had been. In a moment of panic, Sharon tried to remember what Sammy had told her about dryads, the ancient spirits linked to their lamppost homes; and came up a blank. Did they have any customs? Any dos and do nots for a first encounter? Almost certainly; but as it was, she was out of ideas. So, falling back on traditionalism, she thrust out her still-smarting hand and exclaimed, “Hi there! I’m Sharon! I love what you’ve done with the place.”

The dryad stared down at the hand, its head twisting from side to side, like a slow-motion pigeon examining its target from every angle before making a decision. Sharon slowly withdrew her hand, flexing the fingers nervously as if that had been her plan all along. “My teacher didn’t really tell me much about dryads, so sorry if I get anything wrong,” she added hastily. “But it’s really nice to meet you and, uh… your lamppost.”

The dryad’s head rose slowly from where Sharon’s hand had retreated, to Sharon’s eyes, as if trying now to fathom which part of its human guest served what function. Its eyes, she noticed, were the same streetlamp yellow that burnt in the real world, beyond the lamppost: unblinking, but flickering slightly with their own internal filament light. “If I’d known I was coming,” she went on, “I’d have bought something to say hi. I don’t know what kind of thing – I mean, usually it’s tea, because I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t appreciate a cuppa tea – but you might not be so… into… that sorta… thing?” Her voice trailed away beneath the glow of the dryad’s implacable stare.

“I’ll uh… I’ll be going now, shall I? I mean, this is great, but don’t want to intrude and that…⁠”

Sharon turned again, looking for an exit. She was perfectly comfortable with the notion of walking through walls; it was something she’d grown used to over the years, but the thought stayed with her – if she was inside a lamppost, and she tried to walk out through anything other than the front door, wasn’t there a danger she’d re-emerge into the street two inches tall? It was something she wanted to ask her host about, but wasn’t at all sure the communication barrier would sustain the exchange.

She took a slow, deep breath. “Okay,” she sang out softly, to no one but herself. “No problem.”

“He wakes.”

The voice behind her was cracked, full of pops, as if being relayed through an ancient set of speakers. Sharon turned carefully to see the dryad, still staring at her as if she couldn’t work out which part of Sharon was sentient. “He wakes,” repeated the creature again, head bobbing slightly in an attempt to modulate the sound crackling up from her throat. “He wakes.”

“Um… okay. Any ‘he’ in particular?”

“He wakes.”

Sharon bit her lip. “Now, I don’t want you to think that I’m not a positive kinda girl, because I am, always trying to think the best and that, but there’s something about being sucked into a lamppost by a dryad to be told that ‘he wakes’ which just gives me this kinda queasy feeling – do you get that? Queasy feelings? I guess it’s all psychological anyway, so maybe you’re okay, but point is… this’d be way easier if you’d just send me an email. With, like, attachments and diagrams and that. I know I don’t
look
stupid,” she added, “but just this once, let’s pretend that I am because, ironically, I figure that’d be the smart thing to do.”

The dryad’s head twitched again, processing Sharon’s words. Then she stepped forward, so sharply that Sharon took an instinctive step back. The dryad hesitated, then unfolded one long finger and pointed it directly down at Sharon’s feet. “He,” she explained, emphasising first one purple boot, then the other. “Wakes.”

Something clunked, deep in the lamppost, an electric fizz. The dryad’s head whipped round, eyes flaring brightly yellow in the electric gloom. Then she reached up and grabbed Sharon by the shoulders, head turning slowly back like clockwork to look into the shaman’s eyes. “Stop him,” she hissed, and, with a shove, sent Sharon staggering backwards, into darkness.

Blackness.

Cold.

An unfolding.

A closing down.

Sharon stumbled bottom-first into the street, tripped on her own scrambling feet and fell over. She landed in a gangly heap on the paving stones, the world back in full city-night technicolour. In the shop windows lining the road, bright red hair extensions for the socialite lady jarred with ironing board covers and ripped-off hi-fi systems from truly impeccable sources, lined up for customer speculation and delight. The traffic was sparse, thinned out by the time of night, but what drivers there were had sensed a rhythm in the traffic lights and were hurling themselves uphill, determined to catch nothing but greens all the way to Morden. As a man on a bicycle pedalled by, his head swung round to glance at Sharon before he looked away, muttering under his breath. She swallowed and scrambled to her feet, walking a few quick steps to find that perfect place where what was gave way to the rather more shady question of what was perceived, to find Sammy standing in the greyness, waiting for her, arms folded and one foot tapping irritably on the paving stones.

“Took you long enough!” he fumed. “You never heard of getting on with things, pudding-brain?”

“I was talking,” she retorted, “with a dryad. You may rush through these sorta social encounters like you’re having a pee, but I wanted to appreciate the moment, so don’t give me this crap.”

To her surprise, Sammy’s eyes widened. “The dryad
talked
?”

“Uh… yeah.”

“What’d she say?”

“Why?” demanded Sharon, her face crinkling with suspicion.

Sammy’s arms tightened in a knot across his small chest. “Dryads don’t talk much, is all,” he grumbled. “Sorta like… a privilege and that, if they say something to you. Which isn’t to say you’re any good at talking to dryads,” he added. “Because falling on your arse on the way out is stupid for a shaman and you looked like a right lemon and, when you’re being a professional on the job, that kinda thing can’t be stood for. It’s amateur, is what it is, and I’m not training up amateurs! But if the dryad spoke… that’s summat.”

Sharon was patting her knees and elbows down instinctively for any cuts or grazes from the fall, and murmured, only half aware of what she did, “‘He wakes’.”

“Who wakes?”

“Dunno. That’s all she said.”

“Is that it? You didn’t
press
her?”

“Sammy, I was talking with a dryad, in a lamppost; it’s not like I was gonna stick around for twenty questions!”

“But that could mean anything!” fumed the goblin. “Bloody hell, can’t young people have a frickin’ conversation these days?”

“I got the feeling it was bad news, if that’s what you’re asking.”

To her surprise, the goblin flinched. “Lotsa prats walk around these days saying pretentious stupid things in stupid voices, cos there’s plenty of cash in that line of work, but dryads only really talk when they got something important to say. You sure there was nothing else?”

“Uh… ‘stop him’.”

“Well that’s useful, innit! Now we got twice the sense of death and half the information! What have I been telling you about
learning the truth
and
following the path
and all that? In one ear, out the other!”

“Hey!” Sharon gestured at the lamppost. “You want to go and have a chat with a dryad, be my guest!”

Sammy’s nose crinkled with distaste. “Not good for one of us to spend too much time
in there
,” he grumbled, gesturing with his chin at the lamppost. “People get… squishy.”

“Lovely. Well, if you don’t mind…⁠” – Sharon straightened up, scanning the street with what she hoped was her best, decisive glare – “⁠… I’ve got meetings at nine tomorrow morning. So, since ‘he wakes’ and ‘stop him’ is about as useful as roast beef at a vegan party, I’m gonna find a train.” To her surprise, Sammy just nodded, distracted, eyes still fixed on the lamppost. “Hey… Sammy?”

“Eh?”

“There
isn’t
anything we can do, is there?”

“What? No, ’course not, soggy-brains! It’s friggin’ cryptic, can’t never do nothing with friggin’ cryptic bollocks, that’s why you should’ve done more of the truth stuff and less of the standing around like a lemon. Too late now,” he added thoughtfully. “Not that it’s probably none of our business anyway.”

“Fine,” she growled. “Maybe I’ll put it in a memo.”

Chapter 6

The Mind’s a Prison

A phone rings.

After a while, the ringing stops.

A cheerful, recorded voice sings out in the dark, loud enough to stir the papers settled on the desk.

“Hi there! You’ve reached the office of Kelly Shiring. I’m afraid I’m not at my desk right now, please leave a message after the tone.”

A tone.

Silence.

No – not quite silence.

Static.

A cacophony of hisses, cracks and pops. A chorus of electronic nothingness, an interpretation on a theme of void. Layers of busy, bustling emptiness, stretched out across each other like the skin on a drum, humming under tension. Press your ear to the speaker and you might think you can hear the sound of wind turning an antenna, or the pop of someone hanging up in Hong Kong, or perhaps, very, very faintly, somewhere beneath the sharp snaps of electrical interference, screaming out like a pinned butterfly, a voice that cries:

“
Help me!
”

Chapter 7

The Early Bird Catches the Worm

Sharon was not a morning person.

She sat behind her desk at 9 a.m., the second coffee of the day cooling beside her, and tried to look interested at a parade of:

“I’ve been on the night shift for thirty years now, and my boss says that I have to work days because of health and safety. Days! I’ve never worked days in all my life, and what’s he going to do when my skin combusts spontaneously beneath the noonday sun?”

“⁠… and I’m not saying we shouldn’t let werewolves in, because some of my best friends are werewolves, it’s just that…⁠”

“And I said, ‘You have got to be joking! I can’t fight an ancient evil now, I’ve got three exams next week and a date!’ and they weren’t at all understanding.”

“I’m really concerned about the blood banks. They say this year is going to be a crisis year, and unless I get my dose, I have to go and harvest my own and that causes all kinds of trouble…⁠”

“I was, like, ‘oh my God, what is he wearing?’ and he was, like, ‘babes, put the fangs away’ and I was, like, ‘Jesus, did he just say that’…⁠”

“The use of minotaur horn is utterly outrageous in this modern age…⁠”

“⁠… Testing on imps…⁠!”

“– my TV has started issuing prophecies…⁠”

“They should have declared it was haunted
before
we exchanged contracts!”