The Japanese Devil Fish Girl (45 page)

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Authors: Robert Rankin

BOOK: The Japanese Devil Fish Girl
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Images of saints and stern apostles. The Christ child in his virgin mother’s arms. God Almighty clothed in golden raiment in the heavens. Noah in his wondrous ark and Samson as the pillars part. Angels at the dawn of man, the Architect’s celestial plan. Eve and Adam in the garden, tempted by the evil serpent’s charms . . .
 
. . . all rendered in a thousand glorious hues of tinted glass, struck and shattered by the airship’s entrance. Spiralling shards and fragments of the holy tableaus, rent and violated, torn and tumbling. Light of sky-borne fires flaring in about the vast intruder. The nose cone of the airship jamming fast. Engines dying at the touch of Ada’s hand.
 
What was to be done had to be done and as the Martian war craft gained the English coastline Ada scrambled down a landing line from the airship and ran at speed to re-enter the cathedral.
 
The devastation she had wrought was sickening. But Ada could think only of George. That she might do what she must do most quickly, then return to him and pray he was not dead.
 
Ada tore away the remaining canvases from the horrid inner temple.
 
Gauged the statue’s height and whether it might feasibly be hauled away without bringing down all the scaffolding upon it. And without bringing down all the scaffolding upon George.
 
There would be room.
 
A cable connected between the statue and the prow of the airship could, if pulled with sufficient care, ease the statue out, then carry it aloft.
 
Ada Fox did shakings of the head. It was all clearly ludicrous, the chances of actually getting the statue out without destroying it hopeless at best.
 
Ada slumped down and began to cry. It simply could not be done.
 
‘A little too much for you, my dear?’ The voice of Professor Coffin echoed hollowly in the vast cathedral hall. ‘But thank you for your work so far. I will take charge of matters from here.’
 
Professor Coffin had regained his pistol. He limped towards Ada, bloody of face, his left arm broken and twisted.
 
‘Allow me to direct,’ said he. ‘The cable you require is coiled within the statue’s hollow base. Kindly remove it and I will instruct you how to link it up. I am somewhat wounded, thanks to you.’
 
Ada hesitated. She glared at the professor.
 
‘Perhaps your husband still lives,’ crowed the evil showman. ‘Be advised that I will not hesitate to shoot you dead, should you play me false.’
 
By the light of the high church candles and the flaming braziers that flanked the passive statue of the beautiful Sayito, Ada swung open the stone doors at the statue’s base, dragged out the heavy cable, did as the professor ordered. Followed his instructions.
 
 
Instructed simply to ‘fire when ready’ all about London, gunners trained their weapons on the sky. Chaos reigned above and great confusion. There was no doubt in the minds of the Earthbound gunners that the alien forces were now not only bombarding the army of the British Empire, but indeed each other. Terror weapons buzzed and flashed, cloud-ships fell and bulbous craft exploded. The devastation was spreading now across the face of London, for every wounded craft, no matter its planet of birth, fell upon the city spread beneath it.
 
 
Beneath the airship’s nose cone, Ada stood. Perspiring, bedraggled, utterly ravishing. The cable had been connected, the statue now could be dragged out into the night.
 
‘Well enough, young woman,’ said Professor Coffin. ‘You are truly of heroic stock and quite a beauty too. Why not throw in your lot with me? I was born to adventure and so were you. Together who knows what we might accomplish. What marvels we might achieve.’
 
‘I would rather die,’ said Ada Fox.
 
‘That is exactly what I expected you to say,’ said Professor Coffin. ‘Your husband is dead and you must join him in this death.’
 
And so saying he aimed his pistol at Ada and pulled on the trigger.
 
45
 
A
da closed her eyes.
 
A shot rang out and echoed.
 
Ada did not fall.
 
She heard a thump, a clatter of steel.
 
She opened her eyes and beheld.
 
Professor Coffin was slumped on the floor. George stood over him, glowering down at the body.
 
‘I hit him with a scaffold pole,’ said George. ‘I think I might have killed him, but it is probably all for the best.’
 
And then George cried, ‘Ada!’ For Ada had fainted away.
 
 
He awoke her with a kiss, as any gallant knight would do. Her eyelids fluttered and her green eyes opened.
 
‘George,’ she whispered. ‘You are alive. You are alive. But how?’
 
‘Saved by this,’ said George Fox, and he pulled from the inner pocket of his punctured wedding jacket The
Book of Sayito
. ‘Its metal cover deflected the bullet. The force, though, knocked me out.’
 
‘The book,’ Ada whispered. ‘A miracle,’ she said.
 
‘That I would agree with,’ George said, ‘for I know full well that I did
not
put the book in
that
pocket.’
 
‘Oh, George.’ The two embraced.
 
Ada, tears in her beautiful eyes, said, ‘You must help me, George. Together we can move the statue, drag it into the open.’
 
‘No.’ And George raised a high hand. ‘Disconnect the cable,’ he said. ‘The statue must
not
be moved.’
 
Ada said, ‘Are you all right? The statue must not be moved?’
 
‘I had a revelation,’ said George Fox. ‘I have seen the light.’
 
 
Light as air, fast and deadly, Martian forces closed upon London. Mr Churchill had now pulled the whistles from the speaking tubes. He and General Darwin were into their second bottle of port, the map table upon which they lolled a matted tangle of colourful flags, with several stuck in the end of Darwin’s cigar.
 
The militarist and the monkey were all that remained in the war room. The elderly generals in their exaggerated uniforms had fled; Mr Tesla had gone to whenever he might have gone.
 
‘We are doomed,’ slurred Mr Churchill. ‘Damned unfortunate, as it happens. It will look bad on my record.’
 
General Darwin toasted Mr Churchill.
 
‘But you,’ Mr Churchill continued, ‘are my bestest friend.’
 
General Darwin broke wind tunefully.
 
Both were reduced to giggles.
 
 
But Martians knew not laughter, only vengeance wanted they. Vengeance and Sayito’s safe return. The Lemurian airships swept in low from the west, laying waste to everything before them. Guns and tanks and troops and British airships. Cloud-ships of Magonia and Jupiterians too. The devastation was epic. It was biblical.
 
 
‘A revelation,’ George Fox continued. ‘The book saved my life, do you not see? The book did it. It saved my life because it is my destiny to read it. That is what the prophecy said, that I would read the book and that the future of the planets would depend upon me.’
 
‘But I do not understand.’ Ada clung to George now. The walls of the great cathedral shook with the shockwaves of explosions. Shrapnel whined. Mark 5 Juggernauts thumped at the sky. The heavens were in flames.
 
‘It is what I have to do,’ said George. ‘Now is the time – the time that the book should be opened and I should read from it.’
 
The whirling hulk of a Jupiterian man-o’-war collided with the dome of St Paul’s, tearing away a mighty section and opening the cathedral to the Hell that reigned above. Lath and plaster, stone and gilt-girt timber tumbled into the nave. None fell on the holy statue. None on Ada and George. Above the ragged hole, elemental forces roiled and twisted in a firmament of fire. Within the cathedral, before the statue of Sayito, there was a sacred calm.
 
George Fox opened the book.
 
The letters on the pages, lit by the flaming censers, danced as curious hieroglyphics, mystical and quaint. But as George stared they straightened, changed their form that he could read the verses of the Revelation of St John the Divine:
And there was war in Heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought against his angels.
 
 
 
Magonian cloud-ships engaged the Jupiterian war craft. And the sails of the Magonian ships fluttered as dragons’ tails. Though those who stood upon the decks looked very much as angels.
 
And I stood upon the sand of the sea and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon the heads the name of Blasphemy.
 
 
And the Lemurian craft that had risen up from the island in the sea bore down upon the inner city of London. Tongues of flame licked out upon all. The End of Days had come.
 
Ada looked desperately to George as a great crack shot up above the fractured window and spread across what remained of the dome. The roaring of the battle was deafening. The End of Days
had
come.
 
George held the book in trembling hands and read once more aloud.
 
And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.
 
 
And George and Ada looked up towards the statue of Sayito. And the helmet of the Japanese Devil Fish Girl was no longer to be seen. Instead there was a great wonder. Upon her golden head she wore a crown of twelve stars. Beneath her feet the crescent of the moon.
 
The pages of
The Book of Sayito
moved of their own accord. Turned to display the words of other gospels. Gospels not of this Earth.
 
And she shall rise at the saying of the sacred word. At that word through which all might be achieved.
 
 
‘She will rise?’ said George. ‘What does that mean? What is the sacred word?’
 
The great cathedral shook, rumbled to its very foundations, preparing itself, as it were, to crumble into dust.
 
‘The sacred word,’ cried Ada Fox. ‘I know the sacred word. The sacred word is LOVE.’
 
 
And in the midst of Hell’s own mouth, the fury in the sky and all about, that silent moment came once more. That sacred silence born of the sacred word.
 
No more were to be heard the sounds of battle.
 
No more the crash of buildings, nor the fire of falling craft.
 
As George and Ada looked on, rapt in wonder, awestruck into silence of their own, the statue of Sayito moved.
 
The huge angelic wings spread wide, the feathers glistening rainbow colours, twinkling as with stardust.
 
The delicate hands of the Goddess closed one against the other, fingertips touching, palms together, held in an attitude of prayer. The lovely face smiled down on George and Ada. The emerald eyes fixed them with a look of utter love.
 
The statue – now a living Goddess – rose into the sky.
 
And there, amidst the heavens, Sayito spoke. Spoke in every language there had ever been, would ever be. The universal tongue, most understandable to all.
 
‘Shame,’ cried She, in every given language. ‘Shame unto all who violate peace. Who seek to possess what can never be possessed. I would slay you for your blasphemies, for your hatreds of one another, for all your petty grievances. I should wipe this very ring of planets clean as I have done before and I will do again. And truly so I would, if not for
them.
’
 
And Sayito gestured towards the war-torn cathedral below and all knew through Her sacred power that She spoke of George and Ada.
 
‘Two children of Love,’ said Sayito, ‘have spared you all from my wrath. Treat them kindly, if you would ever seek salvation. I go now to other worlds, but know that I have spoken and know that you have seen me, and mend your evil ways for evermore.’
 

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