Vurt (7 page)

The Beetle and Mandy were out there, still fighting, and all I could do was cling to the shadows of a dead liftshaft, holding back the urge to run, to jerk out, except that this wasn't theatre, this wasn't a feather trip. Real life, like Yellow feathers, has no jerk- out facility. This is why the two are so alike.

Even in shodows, no place to hide.

A slithering noise at my feet.

Shadowgoth wasn't reacting to the spit that clung to her cheeks. "I'm getting a tingle," she said. For one second I thought she was referring to herself, to her feelings of power, but then I got the story.

Shadowgoth had heard me thinking!

Christ! Girl must have a heavy shadow, to think around corners, into the darkness.

That slithering at my feet again, and my ankle calling to me, from the years gone by, with a hard knot of pain.

"I'm getting the tingle of another pure one, my brothers," Shadowgoth said. "Pure is coming!"

I watched them from my depths, turning towards the darkness where I buried myself. Their robo-eyes were glinting with red lights, and the shadowgoth had eyes of smoke, which were looking into my soul, seeing the fear there. The slithering was so loud now, I just had to glance down.
Dreamsnake!
Violet and green whisperings. Snake seeking out my wound!

It must have been the panic and the fear that sent me spinning, into a vision of myself catching spikes between my teeth, spitting them loose, snapped in two, taking up a long-handled hammer against the mighty weight of the Nailgunners. Shit! I felt good! Done this low-level Blue some years previous, but here it was again, in my brain, and totally featherless! Vurt was called Spike Attack and usually I ended up dead from the spikes, one in each eye, but now I felt good! Well good, and I wanted to take on the world, especially some thin-bodied smokegirl and her rusting robo-nerds.

I stepped out of the shadows, kicking at the snake the same time. It landed some four feet off, directly under the feet of one of the robogoths. He jumped back from the snake, losing his balance. Goth was falling. He looked a bad mess, on the floor.

This was me, Scribble, hero of Spike Attack, coming to the rescue.

Some kind of fool.

The snake was withering from the Spiked-up strength of my kick, but somewhere between there and my reaching the fray, the Vurt dropped away and I felt a distant pain somewhere, far off, and then realised it was my cheekbone. A fist like iron had smashed into it, and then another, to the left eye, and I was down, and thinking.
This isn't me! I'm not like this! Last time I had a fight, I was thirteen years old. It was my dad doing the beating and I got hammered.
I had my arms wrapped like a mother around my head. I stole a look through my fingers and thumbs, only to see the shadowgoth standing over me. She aimed a vicious beauty at my teeth. Jesus, that hurt! This was some heavy kind of real life, and it hurt like a knife blow, even more so because the glass shards were breaking my skin as I pressed myself into the floor, seeking relief.

Found none.

The girl's monkey boot swung back for another attack and I was thinking.
All I want to do is be in Vurt. Be in Vurt forever. Life's too much for me. I can't stand the pain.

That boot never made it.

There was a sharp cry of pain, and then a hard crack. And it wasn't me! It was nothing to do with me! I rolled over into a sitting-up position. Through a haze of blood I saw Mandy pulling the goth girl back, away from my tender features. Two of the robogoths were nursing painful wounds.
Man, I loved that girl just then, and I wished her total happiness and forever more.
The Beetle had grabbed hold of a stray ankle. He was twisting it all around, until you could hear the plastic bones cracking. I was on my

feet again, and the battle was turning. Shadowgoth pulled out a knife.

The blade of a knife catching fragments of colours, as it moved back and forth in the hands of a woman, over a walkway of broken glass.

Mandy moved back from the knife.

Beetle lifted the leg of the robogoth up, with a fierce jerk, so that the sad fucker fell back, against a hard brick wall. Shadowgoth swung the knife around to face him.

Beetle just laughed at her. She thrust forwards, the blade glittering. It entered Beetle's flesh, the left side of his stomach. He fell back, his mouth open, his eyes wide and staring. He clutched at the wound with his hands. Mandy went for the Shadow. That new girl was proving herself. The blade came back round, in a circle of colours. Mandy made a perfect move backwards, away from the slice, except that a robogoth was waiting for her. He wrapped his arms around her body, pulling her back. The shadowgoth moved in, holding the knife tight against Mandy's throat. The Beetle was slumped against the wall and I was the only one left to save the day.

"Hey fuckers!" I shouted, or tried to. My voice was weak from the struggle. "You better leave my friends alone!"

Oh wow! I guess you can say anything, if the blood is stirred enough.
The shadowgoth laughed. Her robo partners were back in action by now. They gathered in a circle around us. Shadowgoth turned her face towards me, blinked, just the once, and then I felt her finger in there, inside my mind, pulling me apart. Shadow-fuck!

All I wanted was a shadowcop to flicker into life, except that this was the Bottle, a no-go cop zone.

The game's over, little man," the shadowgoth said.

Oh fuck. Game's over.

Just then a door opened. Some two flats down. And a man stepped through. His hair was a long, thick net of grease, leading straight back into the doorway.

Guy was beautiful.

He had a dog on a long lead. The dog reached out with a vicious set of jaws, took a loud snap, came up with that errant dream-snake in its jaws. The dog swallowed it in a quick gulp.

The goths looked back at the white guy with the jungle hair, and the dog from

hell.

"Tristan! My man!" The Beetle calling from where he lay. "The fun's over," said the jungle hair.

He had a shotgun, cocked and ready. And a dog. Cocked and ready.

No contest.

The room was thick with Haze. And a jungle of hair.

We were all safe and sound inside of number 407, the home of Tristan. His girlfriend, Suze, was bathing our wounds with some herbal concoction. It smelt like the ripest fruit, but tasted like wine, and it touched our cuts with a sweet hand.

Tyrannosaurus Rex were singing on Tristan's system, all about the light of the magical moon, and I could hear dogs howling through the walls.

A line of dreamsnake skins were pinned over the fireplace.

Tristan had lodged his shotgun against the doorjamb, just in case. Now he was mixing up a lethal brew in a stoneware pot. Suze dropped some seeds in there as well. It gave off a dense pall of smoke and the smell was wondrous to the senses.

"Who the fuck was that goth woman?" asked the Beetle.

"Take a good sniff of that, my beauties," announced Tristan. So we breathed deeply of it, as the gunmetal blue mist filled the room. And straight away I was into paradise land, touched by angels, caressed by spirits.

"Who was she?" the Beetle asked once more.

"Can't you handle it, Beetle?" Tristan said. "The Beetle getting beaten by a woman?" And maybe that was it; the hardcore man was smarting. Suze had lifted his shirt up, free of his jeans. She was applying the sweet lotion to his cut.

"Tell me! Who was she? I need to know." "They call her the Nimbus," Suze said.

"Nimbus is one top-level shadowgirl," added Tristan. "She's just a mist, Trist," Suze replied.

"Nowhere near as lovely as you, my lover," Tristan said, running his fingers through the smoke that was rising in thick waves from the herb jars. And that was true. It wasn't anything obvious, Suze's beauty, but it was getting to me. Her look was cool, serene, like she'd lived through some bad things, but was now on the other side. It was the eyes that got you; they had a soft golden glow to them. What with the eyes, and all that hair, this woman was affecting me. Maybe this smoke was getting to me. Through the Haze I saw that Mandy was flat out on the floor, wrapped up in the dog. His paws were all over her.

"That's one big robodog, Tristan," the Beetle said. "Karli? She's just a puppy," he replied.

A puppy. That was the biggest dog I'd ever seen!

Suze was speaking. I kind of caught it through the mist. "That's a nice trophy, Beetle." She was admiring the snakehead attached to Bee's lapel. "We don't have no trouble with snakes around here. Not with the dogs."

"Yeah! That dog did good," the Beetle said. "What brings you around, Beetle?" asked Tristan. "What else, Tristie. Drugs."

"What kind? Got some nice Mexican Haze in. You're breathing it right now." "I'm looking for some good Vurt, my man."

"Now you know, that's not really my trip. Not these days. I'm into natural things now. Vurt isn't natural."

"We're looking for English Voodoo."

Tristan went quiet then. He tugged for a few seconds at his hair. Suze felt the tug and responded in the same way, tugging back on the plaits that joined them. They were twinned crusties, sharing the same haircut. Six feet of thick entwined hair stretched between them, and you couldn't see where one ended, and the other began. Over the years their hair had knotted, and knotted hard, until separation was an unthinkable torture. They would walk the world together, never less than six feet apart.
Now there's love for you.

"You want English Voodoo?" asked Tristan. "You know where to find some?" Beetle said. "No. Not at all."

"You telling the truth?"

"I got rid. Pretty quick. I don't like that stuff. It's not natural." "But you had some?" I asked, shaking from the knowledge.

"I told you, the once. I don't do Vurt any more. Period. And may I suggest, young kid. . ." Tristan stared directly at me. "That you keep off that stuff yourself. It's a killer."

"You heard of Icarus Wing?" I asked.

"What's that? Some new killer feather? Man, they just can't leave it alone." "No. It's a man. A man's name. He's a feather seller."

"Like I said, I don't work those areas any more."

Suze had gone silent. She was adding some new herbs to the pot. A fresh brew of Haze floated into the room.

"For old time's sake, Tristie," asked the Beetle. "It means that much, yeah?" Tristan replied. "We lost someone. To the Vurt."

Tristan went quiet again. And when he did speak, this was all he could come up with; "That's a bummer, Bee."

"You really not got any Voodoo, Tristan?" asked the Beetle. Tristan's reply was the softest whisper; "Years ago. Years ago." "Just wondered."

"Wonder not, Bee. English Voodoo fucks. It leads to bad things." This was too much for me. "Someone good," I said. "Desdemona." "Who's Desdemona?" asked Suze.

"Scribble's sister," replied Beetle. "We lost her. To the Voodoo."

"Uh uh, I get it," said Tristan. "Swapback time. It doesn't work, Beetle. I've never known it work."

"Scribble's on a mission trip," the Beetle told them. "And we're all getting dragged along. He's set on finding her. He'd give his all. Wouldn't you, Scribb?"

Tristan and Suze looked towards each other. I saw their hair as a river, flowing from each to each.

"Only a fool goes into English Voodoo," said Suze. She was looking straight at me. The robopuppy had come up close to me, licking my face. I was doing my best to discourage her, but that dog just kept on licking. "Karli likes you," Suze added. I was covered in dog spit by now, so I couldn't argue. "Tell us," she repeated, and something in her voice got to me, some kind of recognition. Like I'd known her for ages, without ever meeting.
What was that feeling?

"You'd better tell the story, Scribb," the Beetle said to me. "You're better at it than

I am."

So I told them.

It went like this. . .

Brother and sister walking it home from a club; vanless, way past the last bus time, no money for an Xcab. We were halfway down the Wilmslow Road when we heard a screaming. A woman screaming, and we took that walk, right into a fist fight

A guy was clutching a woman, shaking her. She was screaming, over and over, face twisted towards the indifferent traffic.

"Get off me! Stop hitting me! He's hitting me! Get him off me!" "I think we should stop," said Desdemona.

"What?"

"I think we should do something."

Oh wow, like thanks, sister.

"What's going on here?" I said, my voice doing its best to sound cool and hard.

Totally failing.

"We just found this woman, man," said the guy, a black guy. "We was just driving along." ,

His car was parked just forward a small way, one wheel mounted upon the pavement Another guy, a white one, was hunched up in the driving seat. There was a woman in the back seat, and she was kind of rocking, you know, back and forth like a snake victim.

"She was screaming by the road," the black guy said. "Just screaming. . . you know?"

"He's lying," announced Desdemona, and it wasn't exactly pleasing. "I am not fucking lying!"

"So what's going on?" I asked, still trembling, just to please the sister.

"I was just trying to help her," he started, but I think we'd got him riled, because just then the woman found a way out of his arms. She ran straight into the road, into the path of an oncoming car. Car screeched to a halt, wheels slipping. Good driving but not that good. Car hit the woman. More like this, actually; woman hit the car, kind of threw herself at it. She was down, face to the tarmac, for maybe two seconds. Then she sprang up again, banging on other cars as they passed her by, slowly, scared faces peering out.

"Help me! Help me!" she was screaming. Nobody stopped.
Who the hell stops these days?

Drivers were looking at me as though I was some villain in this. Felt strange.

One of those moments you'll think you'll remember forever, but it just slips away. Until

such a day arrives when you've got nothing else to do but list your memories, nowhere else to live but inside them.