Rollerskater: Chase

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This instalment contains horror.


Socks had little familiarity with the Tube.

He had grown up in Stevenage in Hertfordshire, north of the Greater London boundary and the M25. He had been to London, of course – direct trains ran from Stevenage to London King’s Cross, and as a child he had been with his parents to the British Museum and the museums on Exhibition Road, but that had usually involved catching one Piccadilly line train, and so he had little experience with it.

It struck him as quite strange that, for once, K-Os was leading the way when it came to mundane human affairs, rather than him. She, apparently, had far more experience riding the Tube than him, which made sense, given that she had been around for longer than London had existed, much less the Tube, and could probably remember the days when the Underground had used steam locomotives.

“Remind me again why we’re in London?” he said, as they traversed the concourse at Liverpool Street to the Underground station, worming their way around people gawking up at departure boards, waiting for their platform to be announced. It was a Tuesday evening in springtime. The sun had not yet set, but people were looking eager to get home.

“I have someone I need to speak to,” K-Os said, skating around a man in a suit who seemed not to notice her. London, Socks thought, was probably the only city where K-Os didn’t look all that out of place – this mad patchwork of two millennia. “Personal business.”

“Right. So you’ve brought me along as…backup?”

“We need to stick together, remember. And actually try to keep our wits about us. Anyone or anything around us could be a threat.”

“So you keep saying.”

There were a set of steps down into the Tube station, and a ramp. Socks had assumed that K-Os would use the ramp, but she instead effortlessly leapt down the steps and landed on her wheels with a clack. Socks winced involuntarily. If K-Os had bones, she would have most likely snapped both ankles instantly.

He hurriedly stepped down after her. Two British Transport Police officers looked on suspiciously.

“Which line are we getting?” he asked.

“Central,” K-Os said.

They went through the ticket barriers – K-Os used one of her tricks to make the gate open, while Socks, still unpractised, was forced to use his paper ticket – and they went down the escalator and on to a crowded platform, where they managed to barge their way on to a packed train heading west.

“The Tube is awful at this time of day,” Socks said, his voice muffled over the sound of wheels screeching on rails. There was a persistent stink of cigarette breath, bodily odour and sulphur.

“Two million people use the Tube every day,” K-Os replied.

“It’s fast, I suppose,” he said.

The journey, in the end, took around twenty minutes – they were delayed for about five minutes because of a person ill on a train at Oxford Circus – and they ended up getting off at Tottenham Court Road.

“You still haven’t told me where we’re going,” Socks said, noticing that sweat was pouring from his brow from the hot Tube carriage. He stretched the bottom of his T-shirt – on which was printed the cover to the New Order album Power, Corruption & Lies – up to his forehead and wiped it.

“Berwick Street,” K-Os said, leading him to a lift.

“And what’s on Berwick Street?” Socks asked, as the lift ascended. They disembarked, and were now in a tunnel, and followed the black-and-yellow “Way out” signs to the next lift.

“A pub,” K-Os replied. “Will you stop asking so many questions?”

“Well, forgive me for wanting to know where you’re dragging me. On a school night, no less.”

“Relax, will you?”

“I will, when we get to the pub.”

“It’s not that kind of pub,” K-Os replied, smiling slightly.

“What kind of pub doesn’t let you relax?”

“You’ll see.”

They exited the Tube station. The light was getting dimmer, even though the clocks had gone forward a few weeks previously. They were on Oxford Street. K-Os immediately began heading west.

“I remember when you people used to call this road the Via Trinobantina,” K-Os remarked, looking around her at the gaudy shop-windows and traffic. “It was much quieter back then.”

As they made their way through the shopping crowds, they passed Soho Street, Dean Street, Great Chapel Street and Wardour Street.

“Next left,” K-Os said.

Berwick Street was an unassuming street, and to Socks’s eyes it looked like any other – there was a pub near the corner between it and Oxford Street – albeit not the pub they were visiting – cafés , clothiers, pizzerias, hairdressers, newsagents, dentists, record shops…

The further from Oxford Street they got, the less and less chic the street became, and at its south end, it could easily have been mistaken for a street in Socks’s own native Stevenage. The sun had set by now.

Happy hour.

Back here, among the concrete façades and cobblestones, was a pub. It did not appear to be in a particularly comfortable location for a pub. The site that it occupied was unassuming; it looked as though it had been built somewhere around the late nineteenth century. The pub’s frontage was done up in wood panelling painted black, with some grimy-looking leaded windows. It looked to Socks like a very old pub, and one that had occupied this street for well over a century.

The sign above the windows gave the pub’s name, in red serif letters on black:

THE LUCKY DEVIL

“We’re here,” K-Os said.

“I wonder if they have a beer garden,” Socks said.

K-Os said nothing and entered, leaving Socks to follow after her.

Inside the pub, there were individuals sitting around tables, chatting, laughing, belching and, to Socks’s mild alarm, smoking. He wondered if there was some grandfather clause that exempted it from the smoking ban. Then he looked more closely at the clientele, and realised at once that they were not normals, for they wore fine, dark clothing, and many of the tables had black crystal weapons of many shapes and sizes laid out upon them…

Chatter began to die down as the patrons saw K-Os enter the pub, and suspicious eyes regarded her as she skated over to the bar at the pub’s rear.

It occurred to Socks that they must have realised the same thing, that they too were not normals. A man playing on a slot machine looked up morosely at the rollerskater. She met nobody’s gaze. She had been here before, Socks thought. He was conscious of people staring at him, as well.

“Hi,” he said, waving awkwardly.

Several of the patrons burst into uproarious laughter. They were definitely not laughing with him.

The crowd of regulars huddled around the bar parted as they saw her coming, as though she were Moses parting the Red Sea. Standing behind the bar was a man with long hair and a long beard, wearing a pair of glasses and a Misfits T-shirt.

“Ah, K-Os,” he said. “So nice t’see ye.” He had a gruff Dublin accent.

K-Os said nothing.

“What’ll ye be havin’—”

K-Os punched him in the mouth and he fell to the ground with a cry. K-Os vaulted the bar.

Socks shouted her name and ran towards her.

Several of the patrons began to close in as she hailed fists down on the stricken man’s face. It took a surprising number of them to pull her away from him.

Eventually they managed to restrain her, and a large, hairy hand shot up from behind the bar and pulled the barman up to his feet. He was wiping a bloodied lip with a dirty rag that was liable, Socks found himself thinking idly, to give him hepatitis.

“A ‘hello’ woulda been nice,” the barman said, dismissing the patrons who were holding her arms behind her back.

“That information you gave me was bullshit, Padraig,” K-Os said.

“I only told ye what the pub knows,” Padraig replied. “And fer God’s sake, my name is Paddy.”

“Then the pub lied,” K-Os said. “Why wasn’t I told about The Light Havoc?”

There were angry shouts from the patrons.

Paddy turned to them sternly and bellowed “Quiet yerselves!

They looked on sullenly. Friends of the band, Socks thought.

He turned back to K-Os. “Now, you listen here. The pub doesn’t know everything, alright? It hears rumours. It makes mistakes as much as anyone else.”

“You sold me information that could have got me killed,” K-Os said. “And believe you me, Padraig – you do not want that happening.”

Jeers from the customers, which Socks couldn’t really decipher.

“I said shut the fuck up!” Paddy bawled, grabbing a bottle that looked about as old as the pub and hurling it aimlessly at a man with a coral snake tattooed on his forehead. It shattered on impact with his head. The man nonchalantly picked bits of glass out of his pint and carried on drinking.

“There’s something you’re not telling me, Padraig,” K-Os said. “After all, the pub knows everything there is to know. I see no reason why it wouldn’t give me the information I asked for, especially after the price I paid for it.” She sounded bitter. “So it could only have been lying. The question I’m asking is, why would it lie to me? I can think of one reason.”

“That’s enough,” Paddy growled. For a moment, Socks saw something flicker. His voice deepened, his eyes seemed to flash red, and for a second, just a second, like viewing an optical illusion, he thought he saw something – something dark, hairy, with sharp teeth. He blinked, and it was a man again.

“Someone is trying to shut you up, aren’t they, Padraig?”

“I said that’s enough,” Padraig roared. “You know that the pub does not take sides, K-Os.”

“Not willingly,” she retorted.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“What it means is that someone was trying to get the jump on me before the conflict really gets underway, Padraig. And someone has been threatening the pub to keep its mouth shut, even giving me false information so I wouldn’t get suspicious. You damn near got away with it, too.”

“Now you listen here,” Paddy said, glaring at K-Os. “Assuming that that is true, what could the pub hope to gain from all that? It’s been here for years. Nobody can kill it.”

“Not yet,” K-Os said. “After all, the chaotic aspect of its ontological space is protected by me. And it wants protection, in case anything should happen to me.”

Paddy backed away from her. “Why the fuck have ye come here?”

“I want the name of whoever it is threatening the pub. For real this time.”

“I can’t give you that, because the pub doesn’t know his name.”

K-Os’s eyebrows raise slightly. “But you do know his gender.”

Paddy’s eyes seemed to widen. The masquerade had fallen slightly.

“Could be a she,” he said.

“What does he look like?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

Bullshit, Padraig. Do you really think he’ll make good on his word?”

Socks noticed that by now the customers were listening intently in on the argument. They were all umbric users, all of them – he wondered why had none of them got up and threatened them yet. Were they off the clock, perhaps? Was there some mutual agreement, an honour system in place?

“These walls have ears,” Paddy said.

K-Os grabbed him by the shirt. There were shouts from the bar.

Give me a name,” she snarled.

No…”

“I am warning you now, Padraig. If something happens to me, then your pub will be ashes, and then what will you be, hmm? You’re a spirit, little more than a projection. You’re nothing without this building. You are the soul and spirit of this place. If the ontological space goes, you are obliterated with it. Are you so stupid as to think that those bastards will take the time to protect this shitty dive? They’re using you.”

Paddy took off his glasses, breathed on both the lenses and sighed. He looked as human as any other. He wiped the lenses clean with his apron and put the glasses back on.

“Beware the Grey Man,” Paddy said.

There was a flash of movement from the front of the pub, and Socks turned towards it, to see the front windows explode in a shower of glass. A number of the patrons screamed in terror, there was the sound of gunshots, and they dropped down dead. He jumped out of the way, taking cover behind an overturned table.

Glass tinkled, and he heard something clinking and jingling through the window. He peered over the edge of the table to see something – human-shaped, but only in a remote fashion. It was tall, broad-chested, with angular anatomy, and no neck and head. Two red eyes shone from the top of the torso, flanked by two long arms.

The creature, made from umbric, was carrying something resembling a tommy-gun.

It spotted him and fired. Wood turned to splinters, and there was a flash.

He was back moments before the attack, and quickly dived behind the bar.

“Socks,” K-Os said. “What the hell are you—”

“It’s a trap,” Socks said.

Once again, there was the sound of smashing windows. Patrons screamed, and were suddenly silenced.

“What did you see?” K-Os asked.

“They’re not human,” he said. “Some kind of…umbric monsters.”

“Shit,” K-Os said.

Clinking and jingling as the creatures made of umbric stepped through the windows.

Paddy was fumbling with something under the bar. Socks looked around to see that it was a footlocker with a combination lock, which he was opening. He flipped it open to reveal two flintlock pistols. He grabbed them and stood.

The creatures caught sight of the barman, who pointed his guns at them.

“I’ve told ye once, I’ve told ye a t’ousand times,” he growled. “This pub is NEUTRAL TERRITORY.”

He fired the guns.

In the case of a normal flintlock pistol, the gun would have fired a lead pellet at its target. What it actually fired, however, was something akin to a shotgun blast.

It struck one of the creatures in its ‘head’– or rather, in its eye – and it fell down with a sort of creaking whine. Oily black fluid ran from the wound.

The other creature, unharmed, turned to Paddy and pointed its Tommy gun.

Paddy fired again – something that would also have been impossible with a normal flintlock without reloading – and hit the creature with a shot to the gut, and it collapsed forwards.

Outside, large, nondescript black SUVs began pulling up. Their doors opened, and more creatures stepped out, all carrying the same weapon.

“Aw, feck,” Paddy said.

“I need to know what this guy looks like, Paddy,” K-Os shouted, from behind the bar.

“Are ye fuckin’ kiddin’ me, woman?”

The creatures began to advance on the pub. Socks peered from behind the bar to see six or seven of them step through the door. They pointed their guns, ready to fire

There was another loud crash from outside, and a roar like a mighty lion. The creatures turned to look and were immediately smashed into tiny fragments.

There was a sound.

Remmm rem rem rem rem rem remmm remmmmm rem rem rem rem rem.

Socks climbed out from behind the bar to see a person sitting on a silver motorbike, shining golden in the incandescent light of the pub. They were wearing a black helmet with the visor down, a beige leather jacket with red stripes down the arms and a red circle on the right breast. They were wearing protected motorcycling trousers and boots.

“Get on,” the rider said.

Socks turned to K-Os.

“Get on the bike, Socks,” K-Os said. “I’ll meet you later.”

“But those things…!”

“I’ll be fine. Get on the damn bike.” She nodded to the rider.

Socks quickly scampered over and climbed on the back of the bike, and the rider revved the engine, turning the bike around to leave through the hole it had just made.

“Hey!” Paddy shouted.

The rider turned to him.

“Fer the road,” he said, tossing them a small bottle of whisky.

The rider showed him a thumbs-up and the bike exited the pub, on to Berwick Street once again.

“Where are we going?” Socks asked.

The rider did not answer.

A small convoy of SUVs was now approaching down the street.

“H-hey,” Socks said. “They’re after us.”

“Shut up,” the rider said.

The engine revved and the bike set off, turning left on to another street, and then another left on to Wardour Street. The road was choked up by a long queue of cars and taxicabs.

“We’re trapped,” Socks said.

The rider said nothing.

Socks felt a sickening sensation. The bike levitated off the ground, and there was a horrible lurching feeling as the entire world around him spun, as though he were suspended on a gimbal. The bike came to rest on the façade of a large building that had been, a few moments ago, to their left.

The engine roared, and the rider leaned forwards. The bike shot off like a bullet from a gun, gripping firmly to the building frontages, jumping over recessed windows and drainpipes. Socks looked up and saw the surreal image of a cityscape floating miles above his head, then to his right and saw the tops of cars.

Up ahead, he could see a chasm – what was really the corner of Wardour Street and another street.

“We’re not going to make it,” he said. “We’re not going to—”

The bike jumped the chasm and continued on its way, heading north towards Oxford Street. The bike was leaving tyre-tread marks on windows, its engine rumbling angrily. There was another chasm, which they also leapt, and another. Socks could see Oxford Street up ahead.

“Hey,” he said. “We’re going to run out of—”

“On it,” the rider replied.

The bike soared off of the frontage just as a double-decker bus pulled up, rotated ninety degrees back to its original position, bounced off the bus’s roof and on to the tarmac, narrowly avoiding a car, and crashed into the next street across, which was called Berners Street.

The bike stopped for a moment. The rider sat silently, as though listening for something.

Socks looked over his shoulder. An SUV rounded the corner, and a thing with red eyes leaned out.

“Move!” he shouted.

The rider revved again and the bike took off down Berners Street just as one of the creatures fired its tommy-gun. Stray bullets rebounded off of walls and parked cars, shattering windows.

In the distance, Socks could see the Telecom Tower, but it was quickly obscured by a tree as they turned on to Eastcastle Street, which was also choked up with traffic.

The bike quickly affixed itself to a set of frontages again, this time on the street’s relative right-hand side. They jumped another gap and followed it along. The SUVs were lost in the traffic and had to reroute. They made it to the end of the road.

The bike was parked right on what appeared to be a cliff-edge. Socks looked down, over the precipice. It seemed to go on forever.

“Hold on,” the rider said.

And then they were travelling downwards vertically, as though falling from a great height. It took a moment for Socks’s brain to adjust to the new gravity.

“I think we lost them,” Socks said.

“Would you be quiet?” the rider replied.

They continued down the street they had been on, made a sharp left on to Little Portland Street, made it to the end of the street, turned right and headed northbound on to Regent Street.

Socks looked around him for SUVs. None in sight.

“We did it,” he said. “We escaped.”

After a few moments, there came a sound in the sky – a rumbling sound, like a motorbike but louder. Socks cringed as he looked up at it.

It was a black helicopter gunship, barely visible against the dark night sky, with a spotlight that quickly trained on them.

“Er,” Socks said.

“I know,” the rider replied.

They rode past Broadcasting House on Langham Place and continued north on to Portland Place. The gunship pursued them all the while.

“What is it doing?” Socks asked.

“Trying to line up a good shot,” the rider replied. “Now shut up and let me ride.”

They reached a large roundabout, following it around on to Marylebone Road.

Socks looked over his shoulder. He counted no less than six SUVs gaining on them.

He had not yet opened his mouth to warn the rider when the rider yelled “SHUT THE FUCK UP,” and then they were heading west on Marylebone Road, pursued by the helicopter, the SUVs and gunfire.

The bike weaved expertly in and out of traffic as the SUVs were blocked by it, many of the passengers choosing to get out and attempt to pursue on foot. They moved freakishly quickly, which Socks supposed was because they were not really human. They jumped on top of cars, slinging their guns on their backs by straps and crawling on all fours in a way that a humanoid being should never, ever move.

The bike mounted the pavement and one of the beasts ran ahead of them, attempting to snare them. It unslung its gun, pointing it at them. Its finger slipped on to the trigger.

The bike crashed through the creature, killing it instantly. The two of them were splattered with its oily lifeblood.

“I wouldn’t swallow any of that if I were you,” the rider said.

They continued along Marylebone Road towards Paddington.

Up ahead, there was a flyover over Edgware Road, and they zoomed up on to it. They had long since lost the SUVs and the monsters were reconvening. Even the gunship seemed to have vanished.

They drove on to the Westway, elevated high above the streets below.

“Where are we going?” Socks asked.

They continued silently along, heading west.

Suddenly, the rider stopped.

“What is it?”

Shh,” the rider said, holding a hand up.

In the distance: choppa-choppa-choppa…

“Shit,” the rider said.

“What?”

“It’s not coming from behind us, it’s coming from…”

And ahead of them, to the west, part of the Westway was suddenly showered in gunfire. Cars screeched out of the way.

“In front.”

“We’re trapped!” Socks said.

“Not necessarily,” the rider replied.

Below the part of the Westway they were on, to the right, Socks could see a familiar red-and-blue shape. A Tube roundel.

Below the Westway, there was a bridge. A road. A road they could only get to by…

“You’re not seriously going to…”

The engine revved.

“We’ll be killed if you miss…”

GRRRRUMMMM.

“There’s got to be some other way…”

REM REM REM REM.

“That is a steel reinforced barrier, for God’s sake, think about this!”

RRRREM REM REM REM REM REM REM

And the bike shot forward just as the part of the Westway behind them exploded—

Smashed through the barrier—

And they were flying, by God they were flying—

Holy shit

The bike hit the Lord Hills Bridge with a kajunk. They passed Royal Oak tube station.

Socks looked around him to see the bike was totally unharmed.

“How did you…”

“Bike’s magic,” the rider replied.

“Bike’s magic,” Socks acknowledged.

They continued south from the bridge. In the smoke and dust thrown up by the destruction of the Westway, the gunship seemed to have lost sight of them. It was still audible, however, in the distance.

After a while they made a sharp left on to a street called Porchester Gardens, and then a sharp right on to a street called Porchester Terrace. It was a street filled with pretty Victorian townhouses, largely residential.

Socks turned his head to look at some of the buildings, and noted that there was a high wall around halfway down the street, affixed to which was another street sign. Past it, curiously, there was nothing to be seen but another brick wall between two buildings, with steel reinforcing struts placed between the buildings to prevent them tumbling into the gap. He idly wondered what must be in that gap, and considered that it may be a new housing development.

The bike then turned sharply left down a narrow street, at the end of which were some bollards, indicating that the bike wasn’t really supposed to be down there. They slipped through the gap and they were on a street called Leinster Gardens. The bike travelled up the road a little way, past more Victorian townhouses, and a small hotel. Then it turned left, up on to a driveway, and the rider dismounted.

Socks had a funny feeling about the building they were parked in front of.

It occurred to him suddenly what it was.

“Wait,” he said. “This makes no sense. There’s…”

He looked up at the windows. While they appeared at first to simply have net curtains up, he quickly realised that the windows were actually completely filled in. They were fake. The house they had pulled up in front of did not exist.

“…there’s nothing behind these façades.”

The rider said nothing, walking towards the wall and feeling their way along, which Socks supposed was because of the darkness. They approached the door, eventually knocking three times.

To Socks’s shock, rather than the dull tapping on stone he had been expecting, there was a wooden, hollow, knock knock knock.

“But the house is…fake!” he exclaimed.

The door swung open, and they both stepped inside.

The interior was quaint and Victorian, all white-painted wood panelling and wooden floors.

“What…?”

The house was eerily quiet. It was as though it had never been lived in.

Wait, no, there was a sound. A sound coming from…downstairs.

It was a skittering sound.

As they walked into the hallway, he noticed there was a door, presumably some sort of cellar door, leading down into the basement. The sound was coming from behind it.

Curiosity got the better of him. He pulled the door open.

From behind it came the most terrifying creature Socks had ever seen. It looked like a crab, at first, and he had always had an irrational fear of crabs – but then he saw its body, its body all fat and hairy, not like a tarantula, no, with this long, worm-like tail flicking back and forth. A rat, a rat with a crab’s legs. But then he saw the head. The head, oh God – an enormous goggle-eyed pigeon. It tilted its head and looked him in the eyes.

There was silence for a few moments.

The creature screeched.

Skree-a-a-a-a-a-aaaaarggghhh!

The sound was like a Tube train going around a bend at speed. It was so awful as to knock Socks to his feet, pushing himself into the next room with his hands as the creature bore down on him…

“Timothy, that is not how we greet our guests,” a voice said.

Socks turned to look in the voice’s direction.

A black girl stood to his left, wearing a dress, on which was printed a pattern of the Tube map.

“Coo?” the pigeon-rat-thing said, inquisitively.

She held up a small box of what looked like fried chicken from a chicken shop. The creature immediately lost interest in Socks. She threw the creature a wing, which it snapped up hungrily, and then wrapped her arms around the thing’s neck, scratching the back of its head.

“Who’s my little abomination against nature? You are! Yes you are!”

Socks stood up and dusted himself off. He cleared his throat.

The girl looked up. “Sorry about Timothy,” she said. “He’s…overly affectionate.”

“He was going to eat me!”

“Well, it is dinner time.”

The creature scuttled back to its hiding place, box of chicken clutched in its beak.

Socks blinked a couple of times, then held out his left hand. “Socks,” he said.

“Harriet-Rebecca West,” the girl replied, taking it. “But you can call me Harri-Bec: The Spirit of London Transport.”

The motorcyclist walked into the living room carrying a cup of coffee. They were still wearing their helmet.

Harri-Bec cleared her throat. “Helmets off in the house, please. Shoes, too.”

The rider put the cup down and pulled the helmet off, shaking their long, white hair out.

She had pale skin and pink lips, and her hair was tied back into a ponytail which she had folded up inside the helmet. It came down to about her waist.

She bent down and pulled her boots and socks off, and flumped on to a green leather sofa covered in ornamental crochet lace. She then put her bare feet up on Harri-Bec’s coffee table, much to Harri-Bec’s apparent exasperation.

Socks took his own Reeboks off, then stepped over to her and held out a hand. “Socks,” he said.

“I know who you are,” the motorcyclist said, not taking the hand, nor making eye contact. She spoke with a very thick East London accent, and had a gap between her two front teeth. “By the way, God, you don’t shut up, do you?”

“Now, now,” Harri-Bec said, disappearing into the kitchen.

Socks continued to stand awkwardly with his hand out.

“Yeah, whatever you’re waving at me, I can’t see it,” the motorcyclist said. She pointed at her face. “Severe visual impairment. I’ve got albinism, in case you haven’t noticed.”

Her irises were unpigmented. They appeared to be a purplish-red, and the muscle fibrils looked like two tiny stars around her pupils.

“You can’t see?” Socks said. “But—”

“I didn’t say I can’t see,” she said. “It’s a spectrum. Me, I can see light and shapes, but nothing clear. My bike does most of the riding on its own. Lucky me, really. Most people with visual impairments don’t have that. But it can’t see things for me. I have to use my ears. That’s why I was telling you to shut up. Apparently, you can’t follow simple instructions.”

“R-right,” Socks said. “Sorry.”

She smiled. “The name’s Chelsea Rose,” she said. “Not the spirit of anything, like Little Miss Hoity-Toity over there.”

“I heard that!” Harri-Bec shouted from the other room.

“You were supposed to!” Chelsea responded.

Harri-Bec returned with a three-tiered, floral-patterned glass cake stand, on which she had placed an arrangement of biscuits – custard creams, Bourbons, ginger nuts, digestives, Jammy Dodgers, and the like.

“Feet off the coffee table, please,” Harri-Bec said. Her disgust was evident. She was wearing white socks with ruffled ankles.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Chelsea replied, taking her feet off the table, which was covered in doilies. Harri-Bec set the cake stand down, then went back to the kitchen, and returned with a small teapot.

“Tea, Socks?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t mind,” Socks said. The situation was quite surreal.

He took time to study the room. There was a glass cabinet which contained what looked like several die-cast models of old Tube trains and double-decker buses. Above the mantelpiece, inside which was a roaring fire, was a very old-looking Tube map, stuck into a glass frame. On the coffee table, where one would usually expect to see magazines and newspapers, there were small paper pamphlets with the Tube roundel printed on the front cover, above which were the words “Traffic Circular” along with a number, in large, friendly-looking Transport for London typeface.

Even the armchair across the room had a rather adorable-looking Tube roundel cushion.

Suffice it to say, Harri-Bec really loved the London Transport network.

As she poured it out, Socks was suddenly struck by a realisation.

“This house is impossible,” he said. “The front is fake, but…”

He looked at the far end of the room. He could see a street lamp illuminating the street outside. The windows were see-through, obscured only by translucent net curtains.

“…this is a real house.”

Harri-Bec smiled at him. “This house is mostly made out of liminal space I’ve found lying around on the network. A couple of inches from a foot tunnel here, a bit of ticket hall there. I’ve stolen some space from broom cupboards as well. And with those Crossrail works going on, I’ve been able to create a basement.”

“Wait, so…this house only exists in your head?”

“No, but it is maintained by my base pattern.” She turned to Chelsea. “K-Os hasn’t told him anything, has she?”

“She’s a bit useless like that,” Chelsea said. She opened her hand. “Can I have a biscuit, please?”

“Which do you want?” Harri-Bec asked.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, woman. Any.”

Harri-Bec indignantly handed her a ginger nut.

“Not a ginger nut,” Chelsea said.

“You said any.”

Any does not include ginger nuts.”

“Well, you’ve touched it now.”

“Oh, don’t be so prissy.”

“The motorway blew up,” Socks suddenly blurted out.

“What?” Harri-Bec said.

“It’s a dual carriageway, technically,” Chelsea said, biting down on the biscuit.

“The – you came here by the Westway?” Harri-Bec exclaimed.

Chelsea swallowed. “Don’t act so surprised. You know I love a big entrance.”

“Socks just said it blew up!”

“Happens in wars.”

Harri-Bec was lost for words.

“What on earth is the matter with you? Was anyone hurt?”

Chelsea sighed.

“Yes.”

Chelsea—”

“Harri, this is a war. People are going to die. If you don’t numb yourself to it now, then you’ll end up as one of them.”

Harri-Bec looked incredibly angry.

“You are already lost if you think like that,” she said, bitterly. “This is my city, and these are my people.”

“If you don’t want casualties, don’t fight in a war,” Chelsea spat.

Harri-Bec scowled at her.

“When is K-Os going to get here?” she wondered aloud.

Socks drank his tea quietly and went to the window.

“Are we safe here?” he asked.

“Should be,” Chelsea replied. “From the outside, there’s no house here. They won’t be able to find us.”

“I can’t get my head around it. This house doesn’t exist, but it’s so real.”

“Existence is cheap,” Chelsea said. “Non-existence, that’s expensive.”

There came a ringing out in the hallway, and Harri-Bec went to answer it. Socks followed after her.

There was a small table in the hall, upon which was a small rotary telephone. Harri-Bec picked up the receiver and answered it.

“Hello?” she said. “Yes, yes. I’ll be right down.”

She turned to Socks. “At least she’s alright,” she said, angrily.

She went to the basement door and opened it, and then went down a set of stairs. Socks followed down the steps.

The basement was a stone room, lit by fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling. The pigeon-rat-thing sat in the corner, chewing happily on fried chicken, bones and all. It looked up at them momentarily, then carried on eating.

“What is that thing?” Socks asked.

“His name is Timothy,” Harri-Bec said, indignantly. “He’s a manifestation of the rage of thousands of Tube passengers. He lives in the psychic space between the physical and the liminal. I accidentally released him earlier this year while experimenting with my abilities.”

“When was this?”

“January-ish. To cut a long story short, K-Os ran him over with a train, but there were delays on several lines the following week, and he used all that anger to heal. It turns out that he was surprisingly easy to train, once I discovered his favourite food, so I’ve been keeping him as my pet ever since.”

“I…see,” Socks said.

There was a green wooden door in the corner of the room, next to which was a very old-fashioned-looking sign reading “TO THE TRAINS”, with an arrow pointing helpfully at it.

Harri-Bec walked over to the door and opened it. K-Os skated through it.

“Took you long enough,” she said.

“Have trouble finding the place?” Harri-Bec asked.

“Did I have trouble finding your house in liminal space? Yes, of course I did.”

“I told you the portal was in one of the broom cupboards.”

“Yes, and not everyone knows what the interior of every Tube station looks like with their eyes closed.”

“I do apologise.”

“Whatever,” K-Os replied. She saw Socks standing behind Harri-Bec. “I see you made it here, Socks.”

“Yeah,” Socks replied. “We got into a bit of trouble on the Westway.”

They went up the stairs. K-Os seemingly had no trouble climbing them with her skates on. Socks supposed that after hundreds of years of wearing the damn things, she could probably scale a mountain with little trouble.

They re-entered the living room, where Chelsea was now laying sprawled on the sofa. Her head turned as she heard them come in.

“Do I hear the sound of trundling wheels? Must be K-Os,” Chelsea said.

“Yeah, hi,” K-Os said, with a tone that implied that she was not at all happy to see Chelsea.

“Oh, what’s the matter, Katherine—”

“Don’t call me that.”

“—K-Os? Not happy to see me?”

“I work with you out of necessity, Chelsea,” K-Os replied. “Not because I like you.”

“I’m hurt.”

“Wonderful.”

Socks looked out of the window. The gunship was circling overhead, looking for them.

“What the hell were those things?” Socks said, turning to K-Os. “They were creepy.”

K-Os looked up. “Umbric homunculi,” she said. “They’re psychically remote-controlled. They can’t think or plan, they just do what they’re told.”

“You’re a poet and you don’t know it,” Chelsea said.

“Shut up.”

“That helicopter is still out there,” he said. “How come the Air Force isn’t shooting it down?”

“It’s probably invisible to normals,” Harri-Bec said.

“It blew up the Westway.”

“And in the morning the government will call it a catastrophic failure,” K-Os retorted.

“So what now?” Socks asked. “We wait it out until they get bored and go away?”

“Do you have any better plans?” K-Os asked.

“No.”

“Then yes, that’s what we’re doing.”

Socks walked over to the sofa, dejected.

“Chelsea, would you mind?” he asked.

She retracted her legs for him to sit down, and then rudely lay her legs across his lap. He looked at her and, despite the fact she couldn’t see his facial expression, nor make direct eye contact, she smiled smugly.

“Did you manage to find anything out from Paddy?” Socks asked K-Os.

“Not really,” K-Os said. “After you left the homunculi stopped turning up, so I quickly escaped to the nearest Tube station. I couldn’t get a description of the guy’s face out of him.”

K-Os looked down at the ground, and then up.

“He said ‘Beware the Grey Man’,” she said.

“Yeah, I remember,” Socks said.

“Do you have any idea what that means?” Harri-Bec asked.

“No,” K-Os replied.

From above them, there came a sudden, very loud sound. The room began vibrating.

Socks looked at the window. The gunship was now hovering very close to the house. It seemed to hover close to the window, as though it could see in, despite the fact that, from the outside, the windows were totally opaque.

“What the hell?!” he exclaimed. “I thought you said they wouldn’t be able to find us!”

“That’s what I thought,” K-Os said, turning to Harri-Bec.

“Don’t look at me,” Harri-Bec said. “The only way it would be able to track you into liminal space would be if you brought umbric with you.”

“We don’t have umbric on us,” Chelsea said. “Unless…”

Socks remembered the homunculus they had crashed into and killed. I wouldn’t swallow any of that if I were you.

“Oh shit,” Chelsea said, realising at the same time.

“You fucking idiot,” K-Os replied.

“Oh, well thank you very much.”

The gunship opened fire. The windows did not shatter, but they began to crumble, as though they were made from solid rock.

“How long will the façade hold?” K-Os asked Harri-Bec.

“I give it about five minutes,” she said.

“Okay. That gives us five minutes to come up with a plan.”

“That’s not enough time,” Socks said.

A silence fell. The gunship fired again.

“Well, this has been fun,” Chelsea said. She grabbed her cup of coffee, which was probably cold by now, reached into her jacket pocket and produced the bottle of whisky that Paddy had tossed her, and proceeded to pour a fair amount of it into the cup. She raised it. “Cheers,” she said.

“Would you take things seriously for once?” Harri-Bec snapped.

“Oh, come on. We’re outgunned. Might as well go out with a bang, right?”

The gunship fired a rocket, which exploded against the façade, cracking a large hole in it. A draught blew in.

Chelsea looked over at it, then at the others, who were scowling at her.

“Okay, point taken.”

Socks looked out of the window, trying to get a close look at the helicopter gunship through the cracked glass.

He couldn’t get a good look at the cockpit, but what he could see were two tiny pinpricks of red light, not emanating from the pilot’s cabin, but from the gunship’s nose.

“Remote-controlled,” he said.

“Eh?” Chelsea said. “You say something, Tilburys?”

“The gunship’s remote-controlled, like the homunculi.”

“Right,” K-Os said. “So?”

“So…the signal must be coming from somewhere, right? We cut off the signal, we stop the things from attacking.”

“The signal could be coming from anywhere in London,” Harri-Bec said. “Even with my abilities, we won’t be able to find its source.”

“What if we don’t need a source?” Socks said. “What if…what if it’s being relayed through something, like a giant transmitter?”

“But what could be big enough to transmit a psychic signal across all of London?” Chelsea wondered.

Socks picked his brains, trying to think of an answer. He thought back to his journey here on the back of the bike. And it came to him.

“The Telecom Tower,” he said.

“Of course,” Harri-Bec replied, surprised.

“Chelsea,” Socks said. “D’you think it would be possible to get to the Telecom Tower from here?”

Chelsea puffed air out of her cheeks with an oosht sound. “Prooobably.”

“Are you sure that’s where the signal is being relayed?” K-Os asked.

“Think about it,” Socks said. “It’s close enough to Oxford Street to control all those SUVs. But there’s no SUVs after us out here. Signal’s too weak. It can only control one helicopter.”

“So the closer we get to the tower…”

“…the more SUVs will be after us, yes.”

Chelsea slapped her thighs. “Well, there are far less fun methods of suicide,” she said, retracting her legs once again. She quickly put her socks back on.

“Alright,” Harri-Bec said. The Tube map on her dress began to move, highlighting a route. “Me and K-Os will go to Paddington through the basement and get a train to Great Portland Street. If you go by road, we’ll rendezvous at the tower.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Chelsea said, feeling around for her boots. “You in, K-Os?”

K-Os thought on it for a moment. “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” she said. “But, yes.”

Socks handed Chelsea her boots, which she put on (he thought better of the obvious joke).

He put his own shoes on, then quickly led her out of the hallway, grabbing her helmet from the kitchen and handing it to her, and led her out of the house and on to the driveway outside, where the silver bike was still parked. She placed the helmet on her head, hurriedly tucking her ponytail up inside it, and started the bike. More bullets smacked the façade as she steered it towards the street.

“I really hope Harri-Bec has good home insurance,” she said, as the bike peeled away and on to Bayswater Road. The gunship had a delayed reaction, and by the time they were parallel with Hyde Park heading east, they had already gained some distance from the flying machine.

“Any idea how we’re going to get there?” Socks said.

“Nope,” Chelsea replied. “Let’s just hope the bike knows what it’s doing.”

The traffic on the streets had lessened somewhat, but London was still London, a confusing patchwork of Roman roads, Tudor alleyways and Victorian sidestreets, ever-choked up with vehicles of all shapes and sizes. They made their way down them, up the sides of buildings and over rooftops, pursued, if distantly, by the gunship, too far to be fired upon usefully.

As they travelled back into Marylebone and closer to Fitzrovia, they noticed the SUVs begin to trickle in again. Curiously, the cars seemed only to follow them, not to fire on them.

Up ahead, in the distance, the Tower loomed larger and larger on the skyline.

“We must be getting close,” Socks said. “But they’re not shooting at us.”

“They must know where we’re going,” Chelsea said. “Easier to corner us and kill us all in one go rather than let one of us escape.”

Socks realised that she was right.

As they turned on to Clipstone Street, the streets became eerily empty, and on reaching Cleveland Street, where the tower was located, they found the Tower almost completely unguarded.

The bike stopped, and they dismounted.

“Something’s not right here,” Socks said.

“I don’t hear anything,” Chelsea replied.

Then, in the distance, the roar of engines.

The road was suddenly blocked off by a multitude of SUVs, from which streamed a seemingly-impossible amount of homunculi, who all trained their weapons on them.

A sea of glowing red eyes stared at them, with long, thin, bony crystalline fingers coiled around the triggers of their tommy-guns, ready to execute…yet none of them fired.

“What are they waiting for?” Socks asked.

“Like I said,” Chelsea replied. “They’re waiting for all of us to turn up.”

“That can’t be it,” Socks said. He approached one of the homunculi. It stared unwaveringly at him, as though through him. He walked around it and noticed that it wasn’t looking at him – it really was looking through him. He followed its line of sight.

It was looking up at the Tower.

“They’re not waiting,” he said. “They’re awaiting orders.”

Then there came a sound from inside the tower, like a dial-up modem screeching into the night, like a blaring train horn in the distance, ones and zeroes coded into a psychic scream that filled all the streets.

The army looked down at their weapons, uncertainly.

“What?” Socks said.

The homunculi seemed to train their weapons on them, half-heartedly.

“Shit!” Socks exclaimed, backing away.

KRRNNCHH

Up ahead, something.

Skree-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-aaaarggghhh!

At the corner of Clipside Street and Cleveland Street, something came charging through the crowd of beasts, ripping through them like a knife through old cloth.

The spotlight trained on it as well, revealing Harri-Bec, straddling the back of Timothy, who was currently tearing his way through the army of monsters, and behind her was K-Os, liquefying herself as she wormed her way around the homunculi.

Timothy trotted forwards and came to rest in front of them.

“Took you long enough,” Socks said.

“Sorry,” Harri-Bec said. “Signalling problems at Tower Hill.”

“Always the way,” Socks replied.

“In case you’ve forgotten,” Chelsea butted in, “We’re surrounded by an army of homunculi and a helicopter that really wants to blow us up.”

“No,” Socks said. He looked up at the helicopter, circling, flashing its spotlight at them. “They want to attack us, but they can’t.”

Harri-Bec looked up as well. “Why?”

Socks’s eyes turned away for a moment and then back to the others.

“They don’t want to risk damaging the Tower,” he said. “They’re scared.”

“What do you mean?” K-Os said.

“The Tower isn’t just a relay. Umbric attaches itself to a user’s being, right? If the transmitter is damaged…”

“Then whoever’s controlling it gets hurt too,” Chelsea said.

“But why wouldn’t they attack us?” Harri-Bec says. “Not unless…they’re scared to get hurt.”

They looked around them. None of the creatures moved. They had lowered their weapons.

Socks looked up at the helicopter, hovering anxiously overhead, and then stepped over to one of the homunculi.

It gazed back at him emotionlessly, the dead red eyes gazing at him. He peered into them, wondering who was watching him from behind them.

“I don’t know who you are,” he said, “But if you’re afraid of us…if you’re afraid of being hurt by us…then know that we won’t hurt you. If you’re attacking us because you’re afraid…then know that we are only attacking you because we are afraid, too. We don’t want to hurt you. Leave this place and we’ll bring you no harm. We’ll leave the Tower alone. But if you do try to kill us again, then we will damage the Tower. We will hurt you. And no amount of homunculi will stop us from doing that.

“So, what’s it going to be?”

The homunculi stood, silently for a few moments. The helicopter hovered overhead.

There was a tiny sound: pink-pink-pink-pink.

In waves and clusters, the red lights went out, one by one, and the homunculi dropped their weapons and fell to the ground, merely dead, mindless crystal.

The helicopter surveyed the dead army, and then turned its attention back to them.

The spotlight came down. If it wanted to, it could have obliterated them then and there. But it seemed to think twice about it.

It uttered one word, in a tiny voice: “Sorry.”

It turned and flew away.

“What the hell just happened?” Chelsea said.

“I don’t know,” Socks said. “But I think I just talked the bad guys out of killing us, for once.”

K-Os watched after the helicopter as it disappeared behind a building.

“Beware the Grey Man,” she repeated, watching after it. “What could that mean?”

“I don’t know,” Harri-Bec replied.

They stood, silently for a few moments, taking it in.

“Right,” Chelsea said. “Will any of you need a ride home?”

“I think I’m good,” Socks said. “I’ve had enough motorcycling for one day.”

“No such thing, my china,” Chelsea replied. Her face was obscured by the helmet, but Socks could tell she was smiling smugly at him.

“I could use a ride back to my place,” Harri-Bec said, exhausted. “I’ll have to repair the damage to my house. It took me months to get all that liminal space together, too…”

She climbed on the back of the motorbike. Chelsea revved her engine and rode in circles around them.

“Sees ya later, K-Os,” she said. “Oh, and Socks?”

Socks looked at her. “Yes?”

“Shut up more, yeah? Nobody asked for a running commentary.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

With that, she sped off back down Cleveland Street, and K-Os and Socks were left alone.

“I don’t like her,” Socks said, after a few moments.

“I’m glad you agree,” K-Os replied.

“Are we going back to uni, then?”

“Yes, I think so.”

They stood awkwardly for a few moments.

“D’you fancy going to the pub? A proper one this time?”

K-Os said nothing and held her arm out in a bow shape, and Socks interlocked his arm around hers.

They walked a few steps.

“Er, K-Os?”

“Yes, Socks?”

“Do you have any idea where we are?”

*

Moonlight streaked into his bedroom and made a line on the wall like a knife shining in the dark.

It was the nightmare again, the one he couldn’t tell Mummy and Daddy about.

He lay, shivering in his bed. On the floor were his toys. He had to keep them well hidden from Mummy and Daddy, or bad things would happen to them. That’s what the visitor said.

Little black man-shapes scattered around the floor, and the big tower, and the helicopter. The man, that man, and the lady in the skates, the motorcycle lady and the train lady, they were all there…all there…he could have…could have got them, squashed them like ants under his thumb. Just like he was told to do. But the closer they got, he got, to the tower, it had made his head hurt. The vibrations shaking through his body. He didn’t want to be hurt. He was scared.

So he had done what all little boys do when they are scared. He ran away.

But it was the nightmare again.

He opened his eyes and looked to the foot of his bed.

Standing in the dark, lit by the moonlight, was a monster. The bogeyman. Mummy said he only came for naughty boys, and he had tried so hard not to be naughty.

He couldn’t see his face in the light, but his eyes shone like little torches. He wore a grey suit like Daddy wore to work, and had grey hair. In the darkness, all of him looked grey. Even his skin. And he spoke in a soft, sweet voice, not at all the voice he imagined the bogeyman having. And he would come in the night with toys and sweets…and threats.

He shuddered, looking at the bogeyman.

“Oh dear, Alfie,” said the bogeyman. “You didn’t do as you were told, did you?”

Alfie did not reply. He only shook under the covers.

“I brought you new toys to play with and sweeties to eat. You didn’t even tell the dentist about it when your little teeth rotted, did you?”

Alfie shook his head.

The bogeyman tutted. “I’m afraid you’ve hurt my plans quite a bit, Alfie. I thought you’d be able to follow my instructions. But apparently not.”

He held out a hand, and all of Alfie’s new toys burst into flames in the middle of his room, vanishing in a puff of smoke and ash.

“I’m afraid our little bargain is now null and void,” the bogeyman said. “I’m dreadfully sorry, Alfie.”

Alfie said nothing. The bogeyman seemed to smile slightly in the dull light.

“I think you ought to get some sleep now, Alfie,” the bogeyman said. “Goodnight.”

Alfie knew he shouldn’t sleep. But he did anyway.

That was why his face was on the front page of the newspapers the next day.

He hadn’t heard the screaming.


Another time, another place…


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ARC ONE: UMBRIC SPRING
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