Rollerskater: Carnivore
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This instalment contains scenes of graphic violence and scenes that some readers may find disturbing.
The illustration for this instalment incorporates elements of “Mare Street, Hackney”, originally photographed by Bill Boaden and released via Geograph.org.uk, distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Unported license. As such, the illustration for this instalment is hereby distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
The sky above the platform was a vast cloudscape of yellows and oranges, as though matching the livery of the train. It was a chill Tuesday evening in October, and the nights were drawing in.
The train doors came open with a small set of bleeps. A muffled automated voice spoke: “This is Stratford, our final stop. Thank you for travelling with London Overground. All change, please.”
On command, a crowd of commuters stepped bleary-eyed into the dim light of the twilit platform, and made their way by muscle memory to the subterranean walkways that would lead them to the next leg of their journey, or out of the station.
She watched them pass.
If she concentrated, the quiet buzzing of the network could tell her where they were going – this man was going to Ilford, this woman was destined for Southend-on-Sea, and these lovers were leaving the network altogether, going where the network could not tell her, for feet were the most private of vehicles, and therefore outside her jurisdiction.
After a few moments, the train enjoyed but a few moments of calm before the clamour began again, and the next set of passengers boarded, herself included among them. She made her way to a seat, on which there was a discarded copy of the Evening Standard. She picked it up, her eyes drifting idly over the front page.
CHANCELLOR PROMISES CITY BAILOUTS
She flipped through the newspaper idly, finding very little of interest – the usual stories of murders and wars, human interest stories, and opinion pieces about what a terrible job the Official Opposition were doing. There were a few stories that momentarily grabbed her attention: “Police attend deadly fire at home of controversial preacher”, “Missing blood ‘still unexplained’ says West End blood bank”, “East Anglia helicopter crash in which 32 were killed down to ‘pilot error’, say investigators”.
She put the newspaper down as quickly as she’d picked it up. Her hand drifted back to the crystal hanging around her neck. She rolled it between her thumb and forefinger, and held it up to her ear, as if checking it still “worked”. It softly sang – there was a quiet glissando emanating from somewhere inside it.
“It’s called penumbric,” K-Os had told her in a small café near Covent Garden on one of her routine visits to the capital. “Keep it with you at all times. It will keep the government from finding you.”
She had been told then of the MI5 siege at the university, of which there had been no mention in the media. Social media accounts mentioning it would simply vanish, blogposts about it were taken down as quickly as they went up. Everyone knew that something had happened, through whispers through encrypted messaging apps, but nobody was allowed to discuss it where watchful eyes could see or hear, and so most of what people knew was the result of a long game of telephone, rumour and speculation growing into urban myth as it moved from person to person, becoming fact and then fiction and then fact again.
The incident had become a sort of information contraband, with the question “What exactly happened at that university in September?” providing fuel for all manner of speculation.
Only a select few knew what had transpired – both in central government and in K-Os’s circle. K-Os had advised her to keep her head down and not attract too much attention to herself.
She had paused, she remembered, lost in thought.
“Something the matter?” K-Os had asked.
“No, it’s nothing,” she had replied.
It hadn’t been nothing. There was something that wasn’t adding up, unrelated to the government business or anything else.
K-Os had destroyed umbric – that material which represented order-from-chaos, a liminal substance existing in the transition between the psychic and the physical – and in so doing, recreated a universe where umbric had never existed. This had been a victory, at least in K-Os’s book.
Something was troubling Harriet-Rebecca West, better known to her friends as “Harri-Bec”.
She recalled her meeting with K-Os in the old universe in January, where she had travelled with her to The Lucky Devil, that psychogeographic point in space imbued with power by the cosmic forces of both order and chaos.
While, strictly speaking, the pub was “neutral territory”, Harri recalled how the pub’s glasses had been made of umbric. Yet, she had been able to visit it after the death of umbric, as though there had been no change, and touching the glasses had not harmed her. It hadn’t occurred to her at the time, but why was the pub even still standing? And why did its publican seem untroubled by the absence of umbric?
And then there was the more pressing issue of her pet abomination, which was to say, Timothy. Timothy, whose entire body was (or, she supposed, had been) made of umbric. K-Os had stated this fact quite clearly after fighting him.
Yet his health seemed no worse for wear, and Harri-Bec had noticed no changes in his behaviour. She frowned, thinking about it. There had to be something going on there that K-Os hadn’t cottoned on to. Was it possible that umbric, in some form or another, might have survived into the new world, and if so, did it still pose a threat?
K-Os, of course, would have simply remained pigheaded about the whole thing and simply told Harri-Bec to focus on staying out of trouble, so she had elected to remain silent in the end, and their conversation had ended abruptly. K-Os had taken the train back to Liverpool Street and then out of London, past where Harri-Bec could have perceived her but with her eyes.
That was the last time she had spoken to K-Os. It had been two weeks. Here she was, alone again, the Spirit of London Transport quietly presiding over her network, older and infinitely more proficient in just a short nine months. This year had felt far longer than a year. (Her fractured spirit’s stint in the Notherethere hadn’t helped things.)
While lost in thought, she suddenly felt a jolt, and was shaken from her reverie. The train had begun to move, and she was surrounded by people packed into the carriage.
“This is the London Overground service to: Clapham Junction,” the automated voice said. “The next station is: Hackney Wick. You must have a valid ticket or Oyster card to use this train…”
Harri-Bec almost always travelled for free. She pitied the fare-dodgers, even smiled upon them. Sometimes when they weren’t looking she’d add a little credit to their Oyster cards, if they had them, or slip a paper ticket into a pocket through means only she understood. It was quite naughty, of course, but she, having grown up black in London, knew all too well the wanton callousness of policemen.
The train rolled out of Stratford, past Westfield Shopping Centre, past the Orbit and Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, with the aquatics centre and the West Ham United stadium. The light was fading fast. There were high grass banks on either side of the railway, and above them, postmodern housing blocks designed in the same iPod aesthetic: rounded corners, steel and glass. She found them distasteful.
“‘Ello,” a small voice said. Harri-Bec turned her attention away from the window and found herself looking into the face of a young girl, maybe five or six. She had several missing teeth and was sucking messily on a lollipop. “Woss yor naym?” The girl’s thick accent reminded her of that of Chelsea Rose, although even Chelsea’s accent wasn’t as thick as the girl’s.
“Harri-Bec,” Harri-Bec replied. “But you may call me Harri. And what is your name?”
“Maia,” the girl replied. “Oi loik yor cloves. An yor neklis.”
Harri looked down at her clothes. Her dress, which was patterned with the Tube map, featured a gathered skirt, rather than the A-line she had favoured in the spring, and she was wearing a denim jacket to keep her arms warm. The jacket had an iron-on patch featuring the British Rail logo near the left lapel. Around her neck was hanging the penumbric.
“Well, Maia, that’s very kind of you to say.”
“Ware er yu goin?”
“Hackney.”
“Ooh, Ackney! Moi Dadee livz in Ackney!”
This was certainly a precocious little girl, Harri-Bec thought. She showed a surprising amount of self-awareness.
Bing-bong. An announcement came over the speaker:
“The next station is: Hackney Wick.”
“Ackney Wick, Ackney Wick!” Maia exclaimed. “Dass ware yu wonna geh of!”
“Not quite yet,” Harri replied, smiling. “I’m actually getting off at Hackney Central.”
“Ohhh,” Maia said. “Oi liv in Izlinton.”
Harri-Bec of course already knew this. The buzzing of the network told her so.
“Really?” she asked, despite this.
“Yeh,” Maia replied. “Woodju loik ter com ter moi berfday parhee? Neks Chuzdee.”
“I’m afraid I’m quite busy,” Harri replied, smiling.
“Ohhh,” Maia said.
As the train pulled out of Hackney Wick, Harri became aware of a woman with a pushchair coming towards her, in which was sat a young boy with a Thomas the Tank Engine T-shirt, stained with crumbs and other muck, perhaps yoghurt. The woman looked quite cross.
“Maia!” she said. “There you are. Get over here, now.” She had a Polish accent, and admonished the young girl in Polish, then in English as the girl came to her side, weaving around the legs of passengers: “What have I told you about talking to strangers?”
“I woz torlkin ter da noice laydee, Mumee.”
The woman looked at Harri-Bec, who smiled back at her.
“Very sorry,” the woman said.
“She didn’t cause any trouble,” Harri-Bec said. “She’s very sweet.”
The woman said nothing more and looked back at her daughter. “Tell Mummy where you are going in future, alright? Bad people might get you.”
“Yes, Mumee.”
The woman proceeded down the carriage with the pushchair, and Harri waved at Maia, who waved back, and then they disappeared into the crowd.
Now the train was rolling towards Homerton, and Harri-Bec was one stop from her destination.
To her right, down the carriage, she could see a pair of dirty boots moving through the crowd. They were worn by a man with ragged trousers and a dirty coat, who was shambling through the carriage with a small cup. He was missing a few teeth, and was repeating a question as though a mantra: “Spare change? Spare change? Spare any change?”
A man in a leather jacket dropped twenty pence into his cup, and the man in dirty boots stopped for a moment. “Gawd bless you, sir,” he said, then he changed his mantra: “Won’t somebody help me eat tonight? I’m so hungry. Won’t somebody help me? I just want to eat.”
The man passed by Harri-Bec, and they made eye contact.
“Will you help me, madam?”
“I don’t have any change on me,” Harri-Bec said.
The man nodded, glumly. “Won’t somebody help me?” he asked, not to Harri-Bec, but in general.
“Wait,” Harri-Bec said. She stood, and the man turned to her. She leaned towards him and whispered in his ear. The man smelled as though he could use a good hot bath and a change of clothes.
“Your name?” she asked.
The homeless man looked at her uncertainly.
“‘Arry,” the man replied.
“What a coincidence,” Harri-Bec replied. “That’s my name too.”
The man smiled a little. By now someone had slid into Harri-Bec’s seat, but she didn’t mind.
“Highbury and Islington,” Harri-Bec said. “The ticket gates will already be open for you. There is an apartment a minute’s walk from the station. You’ll find it above the Thai restaurant. Buzz and give your name. Inside you will find a bath, and a change of clothes. Also, check your pockets.”
Harry looked at her in disbelief, and then he seemed to feel something in his jacket pocket. He reached into it, and felt something. He went to pull it out, and Harri-Bec gently grabbed him by the arm.
“Don’t put it on display. Pickpockets operate on these trains, you know.” She smiled, biting her tongue.
Harry’s eyes were watering. “But…” he whispered. “This feels like enough to get me three square meals a day for a month. Maybe even two.”
“You look as though you could use it,” Harri-Bec said, smiling. “You know, it’s incredible how much money just gets left lying around.”
“Oh, thank you, gawd bless you, thank you, darling,” Harry said, wrapping his arms around her. He was trying not to raise his voice. “I won’t forget this, you know. You must be a angel or summink. Gawd bless you!”
She embraced him, and then he continued down the carriage, eyes darting, keeping the money in his pocket close to him. He had almost forgotten about the cup of coins he was holding.
He had been wrong, of course – there was probably enough to feed him for three months. It was a simple transmutation. People drop coins on the floor in stations all the time, and they seem to vanish into air. Translate the psychic value of all that vanished money into physical notes, and you’ve got a pot of cash, always filling up. It was how Harri-Bec herself ate, much of the time, but she had more money sitting around in psychic space than she knew what to do with. Why not share the wealth?
They soon left Homerton, and now Hackney Central was in reach.
There exists an unspoken contract between passengers on London Transport: Except in the most dire circumstances, you must not speak to anyone you don’t know. If there is one thing a Londoner detests more than anything else, it is the audacity of strangers (and especially non-Londoners) to expect them, after a day in the office, to speak to them.
There are some exceptions to the rule, of course: The very young, the elderly and the homeless can all chit-chat with strangers who may humour them, one may speak to a stranger if one is a tourist looking for directions, and in the case of a train breakdown, wordless tutting, watch-checking and puffing cheeks often gives way to idle small-talk until the train gets moving again, or everyone is made to disembark between stops.
So it was that Harri-Bec remained silent on the train for the rest of the trip, not making eye contact with nor speaking to tired-looking office workers and Westfield shoppers weighed down by carrier bags. Just the sound of the train clickety-clacking along the tracks, the whoosh of air conditioning, the cough of a smoker, and the quiet conversation of friends, punctuated by smatterings of laughter (another exception to the rule).
Finally, the train pulled into Hackney Central, her destination. She straightened her jacket and skirt, then disembarked with a number of other passengers, and made her way for the exit, which consisted of a ramp, leading down into, of course, the centre of the district of Hackney. Harri-Bec quite liked Hackney. It was blemished, yes, rough around the edges, yes, but that was the East London that was rapidly being bulldozed by building developers; an endangered species. Last chance to see.
It was dark by now. It was still peak hours, so there were still people moving around the city, and there would be for another hour or so, but it was quite a way past office-letting-out-time, so most shuffled off home, or otherwise to the nearby Iceland or Tesco for a frozen or chilled meal to heat up when they got in.
Harri-Bec instead found her way through the hustle and bustle to the local chicken shop. It had the sort of name that was immediately forgotten by its patrons, because everyone just knew it as the “chicken shop”, a name like Chicken Delish or Tasty Chicken or Chicken Hut.
It was one of many in the capital, and served much the same fare as all the others.
There were a couple of punters already slumped against the counter, waiting for food as she entered the shop. They turned, looked at her, and then slid off to the side so she could speak to the man up front.
“Yes, please, darling?” the man at the front said. He had a Turkish accent.
“I’d like two family buckets, please,” Harri-Bec said. “Two cans of Mirinda and two Pepsis, please. And some barbecue sauce, if you don’t mind.” She reached into her pocket and conjured money from psychic space, handing it over the counter.
“Big meal,” the chicken man said, with a grin, as he took the money.
She smiled back at him. “It’s not all for me,” she said.
The man smiled and then turned to the kitchen, barking Harri’s order in Turkish. A reverberating reply came from the kitchen, also in Turkish: “Tamam!”
“Who’s the food for?” the chicken man asked. He put the money in the till and gave Harri-Bec her change.
“Oh, a friend,” Harri-Bec said. “He asked me to pick something up for him here.”
“Ah, maybe we know him. What’s his name, darling?”
Harri-Bec paused. “Tim,” she said.
“Oh, we know Tim. Tim mechanic, yeah?”
“No, Tim isn’t a mechanic,” Harri replied, smiling. “He’s…well, I suppose you could say he’s a bit of everything.”
“Ah, maybe we don’t know him,” the chicken man said. Someone came from the kitchen area and passed him a white plastic bag, filled already with droplets of condensation, containing a cardboard box printed with pictures of fried chicken and french fries.
“Here you go, boss,” the chicken man said, passing the bag to one of the men waiting to eat.
“Cheers, bruv,” the man said, and left.
“Two minutes, darling,” the chicken man said to Harri-Bec.
“Of course,” Harri-Bec said. She could be patient.
The door came open, and Harri-Bec, assuming the place of the man who had just left, turned to see who had entered.
There was a young woman, perhaps somewhere around her age, which was to say twenty-two. She had pale white skin with strawberry-blonde hair tied up into a bun, and two wisps of hair hung from either side of her face, just in front of her ears. Her eyes were the colour of rust.
She was wearing a faux-leopard jacket, which was opened to reveal a top printed with the poster for George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, a movie Harri-Bec had tried to watch once as a young girl, against the advice of her parents, but she’d got too scared in the first ten minutes and turned it off. Below her waist, the woman wore a leather skirt, fishnet tights and a pair of Doctor Martens boots. She had multiple piercings in her ears, a nostril and septum piercing, and tattoos on her legs of the macabre – zombies, skulls and devils. She was the sort of person you might expect to see in Camden Town on a Saturday, Harri-Bec thought. The North London line ran to Camden Road, so she supposed that this was where the young woman had been, perhaps working in one of the alternative clothing shops in the marketplace.
“Yes, please, miss?” the chicken man asked.
“A regular meal, please,” the woman said. She brushed some hair behind her ear with her right hand, and Harri-Bec noticed that she was wearing a leather glove on that hand, but not the other – the other had black fingernails with little white spots, which Harri supposed were probably skulls.
“I like your shoes,” Harri-Bec said.
The woman turned and looked Harri up and down. She was wearing black lipstick, and ran her tongue along her teeth and the corner of her mouth like a cat.
“Thank you,” she said, tersely. “I like your jacket.”
“Thank you,” Harri-Bec said. “Do you live in the area?”
“Yeah,” the woman replied. “You?”
“No. I’m from Ealing, originally. I live near Bayswater now.”
“Interesting,” the woman said, smiling.
“Here you go, darling,” the chicken man said, suddenly. Harri-Bec turned to see that he was holding a big bag out to her, with two large buckets full of fried chicken, as well as boxes of chips and polystyrene cups of baked beans and coleslaw, along with the cans of drink. It really was a big meal – but of course, it wasn’t for her.
“Thank you,” Harri-Bec said to the chicken man. She turned to the woman. “I’ll see you around.”
“See you around,” the woman said.
Harri-Bec left the restaurant and turned a corner, standing in front of a graffito that had been hastily daubed on to the wall.
She could have gone anywhere for chicken, really, but Timothy liked chicken from East London better than chicken from anywhere else.
In fact, rarely did she actually eat out of these places, but nevertheless, her hand went into the bag and she stole a chip, which was unsalted and had already gone soggy with condensation. It wasn’t very nice.
Timothy wouldn’t mind the missing chip. Timothy liked meat most of all.
It was night by now, and the clouds had moved away. The moon overhead was just on the cusp of waning-gibbous. The Man in the Moon, as he always did, wore that shocked expression, eyes wide open and mouth agape. She knew, of course, that what she was really looking at were craters (well, lunar maria, to be specific), but she never had been able to shake the illusion (What was it called? Ah, yes – pareidolia!) that there was a face up there.
She wondered, idly, what he must be screaming at up there. There was a lot down here to scream about, but he’d been wearing that terrified face for more than a million years, so whatever it was, it must be scary.
She looked down from her daydreaming, and saw the stone and the tarmac and the paving stones. There was a reason, she thought, that the opposite of abstract was concrete. You could always find your way back from reverie to the mundane grey stonework under your feet.
She sighed. Best be moving on.
She hefted the large bag, and began to walk in the direction of the nearest bus stop, listening to the humming of the city for her quickest route home.
The humming was more urgent than usual.
No no no no no no no, the city seemed to be saying. The city hummed wordlessly, but the meaning was the same as “no”. But what kind of “no”? Urging her to stay? To flee?
Her question was answered a second later.
A sound split the night, and for a moment, she thought subconsciously that it came from the Moon, whose shock now seemed to have an apparent source.
The sound had been a scream.
A man’s scream.
Harri dropped the food, dashing it across the pavement. She knew exactly where the sound had come from.
Cautiously, she edged her way around the corner with her back to the wall, and felt for the crystal around her neck. Quietly, it hummed. It was getting cold; she could see her breath.
She peered over her shoulder through the front window of the chicken shop, where there were laminated posters of lunch deals and banquet deals and meals whose prices had been changed at least two or three times, and was greeted by red that hadn’t been there before. She flinched away reflexively, covering her mouth.
Run run run run run run run, the city implored her.
But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. Something had attacked the city. Her city. It was her duty to investigate.
Nothing for it. Sorry, London.
She made a dash into the shop, throwing the door wide, and saw the full scale of the horror.
The other man who had been in there, waiting for his food, had been a tall man, muscular, in a black leather jacket. What remained of him now was mutilated beyond recognition – deep gashes marked his face and chest, exposing bone, and his legs were splayed awkwardly. For a moment she caught a glimpse of his ribcage, and realised that his abdomen was torn open. She covered her mouth and looked away.
“Who’s there?!” a man screamed from behind the counter. His voice was high and terrified.
“It’s me,” Harri-Bec said. “The girl who ordered the big meal.”
“Oh, God…” the man went very quiet for a few moments. “Then where—?”
The man behind the counter was holding a big knife. Harri wasn’t sure how much protection that offered him.
“Erdemir!” the chicken man called. “Erdemir!”
Harri-Bec heard something above her head, and looked up. The plaster ceiling tiles were rattling—
A body crashed through the ceiling and smashed against the floor. This one was different to the first, more complete, but withered somehow, dried, such that the skin was like leather on bone. Mummified.
Harri-Bec felt the blood leaving her face.
The ceiling in the kitchen crashed open and a figure descended from above, seizing the chicken man by his shirt with its left hand. The chicken man responded by plunging his knife into the figure’s left shoulder. There was no reaction.
“Oh God,” the chicken man said.
The figure turned to look at Harri-Bec and Harri-Bec saw at once who it was. The tattooed woman in faux-fur, now stained with blood.
The woman grinned at her. Her teeth were sharp, with two long, sharp fangs on each jaw where cuspids should be.
The unmistakeable teeth of a carnivore.
“What are you doing?” Harri-Bec asked.
“What does it look like?” the woman replied. “I’m having dinner.”
She smiled and laughed inhumanly.
“Impossible…” Harri-Bec said, backing away from her.
“And yet,” the woman replied, her voice a low hiss.
The chicken man was mumbling something, begging for mercy.
“Is he begging?” the woman asked, licking her bloody lips. “I love it when they beg. Means they’re scared. Lots of stress hormones in the blood. Adds a bit of spice.”
“Let him go,” Harri-Bec said.
“You just said I can’t possibly exist,” the woman said. “How can you be afraid of something that doesn’t exist?”
The chicken man was grasping for the knife, trying to have another go, drive it further in, kill his attacker…
Of course – it would take more than a stainless steel knife to kill…
a vampire.
The woman raised her right hand – and where a right hand should be, there was a clawed appendage, made out of blood red crystal.
The hand slashed. There was a wet crunching sound.
The chicken man screamed death-agony.
She seized him by the throat with her mouth, and it took what seemed like moments for her to drain him. The screams died down to a strangled moan, and then to silence. She tossed the dessicated corpse aside, withdrew the knife from her shoulder and tossed it away, then leapt atop the counter.
“My compliments to the chef,” the woman said, wiping her lips.
Harri-Bec backed towards the door of the shop.
“Impossible,” she said again. “There’s no such thing as vampires…”
“Oh, I’m very real,” the vampire woman said. “And I am so very hungry.”
Harri-Bec fumbled for the door handle behind her, pushing the door open. The vampire woman was slowly, but surely walking towards her.
Harri-Bec backed out of the chicken shop. She didn’t dare look behind her. The network’s buzzing had become incomprehensible. It was as though it didn’t understand how this woman could exist, much the same as her. It was well established that vampires were mere folklore. Count Dracula was a fictional character, not an actual, historical person.
“I smell something different on you,” the vampire said. “A new flavour…”
They were now around the corner. There was nowhere left to run. The vampire had her cornered.
Harri-Bec placed her back against the wall.
“Don’t feel bad,” the vampire slavered, raising her claw. “Look at it this way: every struggle you have been through, every hardship you have endured, every joy you have ever felt – it has all been devoted simply to the purpose of sating me. Isn’t it nice to have a purpose? To know it has all meant something? There is no need to fight any more. Come, now, join me…”
Harri-Bec said nothing, only placing her left hand against the graffito on the wall behind her.
Graffiti is quite common in London, so it was no surprise that the vampire hadn’t noticed it. But Harri-Bec had.
For a moment, the vampire saw what had been painted on to the wall: Spider-legs, a rat’s body, and a pigeon’s head—
The graffito suddenly leapt from the wall. The vampire had no time to react, as with a crab-like leg it swiped at her face, hooking with a clawed foot her right cheek and tearing violently, leaving her cheek gouged open. Then with another swipe, it broke her lower jaw clean off, and roared victoriously:
Skreeaaaaaaaaaaarrrrggggghhhhhhhhh!
“Good boy, Timothy!” Harri-Bec shouted.
The vampire shrieked. Her body was not made of flesh, Harri-Bec could see. This was why the knife had not harmed her. It seemed to be made of a complex system of interlocking red crystals. The vampire roared, charged at her—
Harri-Bec wasted no time in mounting Timothy’s back.
Timothy bellowed again, and they made their escape.
Through the autumnal streets they ran, with the darkness by their side. They tried to stay out of sight as best they could, but it was central Hackney. She prayed that nobody from the government was watching. She could do without the police noticing as well. What could she do? Where could she go?
Think, think. Where’s the first place you’d go if a vampire was after you?
Though it was dark, Harri-Bec could see it: A steeple, rising above Hackney. A church.
Quickly, she steered Timothy into the churchyard, over grass and flowerbeds, and up to the large wooden door.
Locked.
If this was God’s house, it was open all hours. And if there was anywhere that would be safe from vampires, it was a church. Harri-Bec was not particularly religious, but that woman was not one of God’s creations, she knew that much.
It took some doing, but Timothy was able to wrench the doors open.
The church was empty but for a lone vicar, who had been sitting in one of the pews near the front. There were lit candles everywhere. Hurriedly, Harri-Bec instructed Timothy to hide himself, and he did as she asked.
“How did you get in here?” the vicar asked.
“I’m sorry, Reverend,” Harri-Bec said. “It’s an emergency.”
“An emergency?”
“Yes, Reverend…someone is after me.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place,” the vicar said, with a slight chuckle. “The Devil wouldn’t dare set foot in here.”
Harri-Bec laughed nervously.
“Tell me, what’s happened?” the vicar asked, pleasantly. He had a sweet, elderly voice and an elderly frame that commanded respect and dignity, while also being friendly and approachable. Exactly what you’d want from a clergyman.
There was a lengthy silence.
“I can’t say,” Harri-Bec said. “You’ll think I’m stupid.”
“Of course not,” the vicar said. “Nothing is too ridiculous.”
“I’ve just seen…” Harri-Bec said. “I don’t know. I don’t understand…I thought I had a handle on things, but…there’s no way I can explain what I just—”
“I understand,” the vicar said. “But whatever it is you’ve seen, you’re quite safe here. Would you like something to drink?”
There was a terrible crash at the front of the church, and the remains of a stained glass window came cascading to the ground. The vicar’s mouth fell agape.
The cold autumn air blew in.
Standing in the window, faux-leopardskin coat blowing in the breeze, was a woman with red hair and a bloody maw.
The vicar covered his mouth.
“God have mercy,” he said, breathlessly.
And then the vampire did something that no vampire should ever have been able to do.
She entered the church.
Her jaw was reattached, and she was once again able to speak.
“Stupid, predictable move,” she said, wiping fresh blood from her lips. Harri-Bec realised: She had fed from the disembowelled corpse to heal herself. “Chased by a vampire and the first place you go is a church. What a shame. There’s no God that can protect you from me.”
As if to prove her point, the vampire grabbed a gold cross that had been placed in the middle of the chancel in her clawed hand, desecrating it in the process, and threw it to the ground. No sizzling flesh. No cries of pain.
She was not a demon, and as such, neither God the Father, nor God the Son, nor God the Holy Spirit had dominion over her.
The vicar’s eyes were wide with terror. He was considering a very real possibility: His God had abandoned him…or had never been there to begin with.
“What did you think?” the vampire said. “You could keep me away with stupid little crosses? Were you going to put garlic around your neck? Drive a wooden stake through my heart? Shoot me with a silver bullet? Wait for the dawn to come and claim me before I can crawl into my coffin? See, that’s the problem with your silly campfire stories, they always give you squealing little bags of blood a way out.”
She laughed haughtily, lunging at the vicar, who screamed in mortal terror, and grabbed him by the cassock. She raised the clawed hand, staring hard into his eyes.
“This is the body,” she said, raking the claws across his cheek. “And this is the blood.”
Before the vampire could strike the fatal blow, Harri-Bec threw herself at the vampire’s legs and tackled her to the ground.
“After her, Timothy!” she shouted.
Timothy, who had crawled into the rafters above the pulpit, threw himself upon the vampire, savaging her with his beak and clawed legs. She was ready this time, though, and swiped at Timothy with her claw. Timothy cried out in pain and crashed through a set of pews, sending Bibles, hymnbooks and hassocks cartwheeling across the floor. Timothy was bleeding, knocked out.
“Timothy!” Harri-Bec shouted.
She didn’t have time to think. The vampire was dizzied, disoriented, but approaching.
“Quickly,” Harri-Bec said, turning to the vicar. “Lock yourself behind the pulpit. I’ll draw her away.”
“What was that creature?” the vicar said, clutching his bleeding cheek, half-sobbing. “Are you working with demons?”
“No,” Harri-Bec said. “I’m fighting them. Now go!”
The vicar sprinted behind the pulpit to a storage cupboard, grabbing a set of keys along the way, and locked himself inside.
The vampire was advancing on Harri-Bec. She was breathing like a person that has lost a lot of blood, Harri-Bec thought. She said nothing, but a husky, rasping growl, like that of a starving animal, emanated from a crystalline voice box.
She’s got to have a weakness, Harri-Bec thought. Vampires always have weaknesses, right?
She knew in her heart this was the futile thinking of a small prey animal gnashing its teeth and biting even as the strong jaws of the predator clamp down on it. The vampire had said it herself; she was no creature of myth or fiction, and could not be killed by the means that horror stories always promised.
The vampire steadied herself against a pew, panting.
She’s starving, Harri thought. Is that her weakness? Can I starve her to death? Stall for time.
“What is your name?” Harri said. “Or what was your name, before you…changed?”
The vampire grinned hyenine, baring her sharp carnivore teeth.
“Trying to beg for your life?” she said. “You’re afraid. I can smell it on you. Epinephrine. Cortisol. That spoils game meat, you know. Makes it tough and tasteless. But I’m not interested in your meat, sweetheart.”
“I’d like to know who’s killing me, at least,” Harri-Bec said, trying to back away from her. “Please allow me that dignity.”
The vampire laughed.
“You terrified little kitten,” she said. “God, I can hear your heart going like a pneumatic drill. I just want to rip it out of your chest and wring it out…”
Despite her taunts, the vampire seemed to be losing balance. Harri-Bec really was starving her.
“If you want my blood, then tell me your name,” Harri-Bec said.
The vampire licked her lips again.
“My human name was Amber,” she said. “I have no need of it now. You may have it as a final gift.” She smiled, wryly, then laughed.
“Thank you,” Harri-Bec said. Amber sank to her knees.
I did it, she thought, for moment. I starved her—
Without warning, Amber threw herself at Harri-Bec, catching her by the waist. Harri, winded, could only watch as Amber leaned over her, the red hair framing her face like a bloody waterfall, preparing to bite down and drain the life from her—
There was a terrible scream. But it was not Harri-Bec who screamed.
Amber was scrabbling away from her, eyes wide like a terrified cat, pushing away from her would-be prey so quickly that one of her boots came loose and fell off.
Harri-Bec sat up, perplexed, as the vampire growled at her, like a dog afflicted by rabies might react to a dish of water. Then she saw where the wide eyes were staring.
The crystal hanging from her neck.
“Penumbric,” Amber hissed. “Where did you get that, you fucking bitch?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Harri-Bec said, clutching the crystal in her hand. “But it looks like I just figured something out about you.”
The vampire narrowed her eyes, regained her composure and laughed.
“Clever kitten,” she said. “So you know that penumbric is the only material that can damage rubric. Do you think that will save you? When I manage to get that crystal off your neck, I’m going to pull your spine out through your throat.”
“Come and get it,” Harri-Bec said, dashing for the wooden door, slamming it behind her. She stopped, placing two fingers in her mouth, and whistled loudly. Behind her, a stained-glass window shattered, and it was Timothy, dazed, wounded, but alive. He scuttled towards her on his spider-crab legs.
“Coo,” he said.
“Come on, Timothy,” she said, climbing on his back. Weakly, Timothy began to run, but it was clear that his strength had been sapped by the vampire’s attack.
They made their way around the church, and then heard the sound of wood splintering. Amber was ravening. That weakened her, but also made her more desperate, and that made her dangerous.
There was only one thing for it.
“Just as we practiced, Timothy.”
“Coo.”
They came to a bus stop, with a poster advertising holidays in Cyprus. They ran full pelt towards the poster.
Amber was close behind them, and saw them leap at it, laughing madly as if that would save them, and then watched as it did – they vanished behind a veneer of Perspex into the poster, and ran away along a hot Cypriot beach.
Moments later, Harri-Bec fell out of a poster for car insurance on the platform at Hackney Central, leaving Timothy in liminal space for safety, and looked up at the electronic sign to see that the next train was due in two minutes. Two minutes wasn’t long, but Amber was fast, and Harri knew that the vampire would be after her soon enough.
She she she she she she she, the city was breathlessly humming. Coming coming coming coming coming coming coming.
What could she do? The vampire had her scent now. Her only safeguard was the network. She had to get into the network – that was her battleground, that was where her power was strongest. The penumbric would keep Amber at bay for now, but she had to plan quickly.
A train began to roll in. Amber was nowhere in sight. Don’t think about it, just board.
The train stopped and the doors came open, and a few people disembarked – less than there had been when she got off. The train was heading westbound towards Richmond. She had no destination in mind, she just had to get on the railway.
Harri-Bec ran on to the train, gripping its handrails, and immediately felt herself becoming stronger.
I am the Spirit of London Transport, she thought. London lives and dies through me. Come for my city, you’ll have to go through me first. I can do this.
Electric motors hummed to life and the train began to roll. The train was less full than earlier, but by no means empty. They were just building up speed. It was quiet again. Nothing but idle, quiet chatter, coughs and tiny whispers of laughter…
There was a terrible crash and the sound of bending metal and snapping plastic in the ceiling. Some lighting went out. A woman screamed.
The roof had a hole in it. And sticking through the hole was a clawed right hand.
With superhuman strength, the metal roof was bent open like a tin can, and through the hole jumped Amber, who in the dim light looked even less human.
“Where do you think you’re going, bitch?” she said, wild-eyed, staring at Harri-Bec.
Down the carriage, a man pulled the emergency alarm, and the train came screeching to a halt between Hackney Central and Dalston Kingsland. The sudden lurch caused Amber to fall into the screaming woman’s lap.
When the train had come to a complete stop, she looked up. The woman continued to scream. Amber grinned, and raised her claw to attack again.
Thinking quickly, Harri-Bec ran at Amber, and suddenly she was garotting the vampire with the necklace, from which hung the penumbric crystal. Then, on sheer instinct, she slammed the crystal into the vampire’s back and pressed hard against it with her palm, causing the vampire to howl wretchedly.
After a few moments, Harri pulled her hand away and the crystal was gone, just a silver chain and a lot of powdery pink crystals like Himalayan salt.
Amber wheeled on her. “I’m going to fucking kill you.”
Before Harri-Bec could react, Amber had her by the waist, hefting her up. Passengers screamed in fear, fleeing for their lives, and suddenly Harri-Bec found herself outside, laying on a set of tracks.
The vampire had thrown her through the train doors. She was outside the network once more. Trapped on the railway going eastbound towards Stratford. Powerless.
Amber grabbed Harri-Bec by the neck with her unclawed hand, driving her nails into Harri-Bec’s cheeks.
“Enough foreplay,” the vampire said, licking her lips.
“No passenger trains…for ten minutes,” Harri-Bec said, winded and defeated.
Amber cackled. “I won’t need that long,” she said. “You burned my back a bit. But it’s nothing a little blood won’t fix. Now open wide and say ‘AAAAAAAAAA’—!”
So this was it. The Spirit of London Transport, the girl who had survived the death and rebirth of a universe, who had tamed the abominations that hide between worlds to be her servants, who was the voice of the network, the only person to whom London could truly speak, and the only one in whom London could truly trust…and this was to be her undoing?
It hurt to breathe.
“That’s right,” Amber asked, raising her clawed hand. Her eyes seemed to flash red in the dim light. “Nice and wide for me, sweetheart.”
She was going to open Harri-Bec’s neck and drink from the weeping veins.
“In the exalted name of the Blood Moon, I consecrate—”
Hawww-HENNN!
“What.”
Amber turned to see a light moving towards her down the tracks. Harri-Bec used the moment of confusion to push herself away from the vampire and off the tracks.
Amber tried to move, and tripped. Her bootless foot, clad in fishnets, had snagged on a rail clip.
“You said there were no trains for another ten minutes!” she shrieked.
“No,” Harri-Bec said. “I said there were no passenger trains for another ten minutes.”
Hawww! Hawww! Hawww-HENNNNNN—
“STOP!” the vampire screamed, desperately holding out her clawed hand.
A green and yellow Freightliner smashed into her with brakes shrieking like bats out of Hell. The crystalline body made a sound like breaking glass as it shattered into a million tiny pieces that could never be reassembled.
Harri-Bec stood, dusting herself off as best she could.
The Spirit of London Transport was sweet. Kind. Generous. But she was London personified. And London is as terrible as it is beautiful; as furious as it is joyful; as dark as it is bright. She tried to be a friend to everyone. But if you came for her city, the city she had sworn to protect and oversee as long as she lived, then she would not be kind or generous. London moves too fast to spare kindness or generosity to those that would attack its people.
Come for London, and she would destroy you.
She made her escape up a bank covered in plants, then through a fence, into the car park behind a block of flats. By some miracle, she was able to find her way to a bus stop, and make her way through liminal space back to Leinster Gardens, where she fell through the door, exhausted.
Timothy was waiting in the kitchen, as he always did.
“Coo?” he said, tilting his head inquisitively.
“Sorry, Timothy,” Harri-Bec said. “Looks like we’re ordering in tonight.”
“Coo.”
Minutes later, she was on the phone to K-Os, requesting more penumbric, and receiving a cold response. Typical K-Os.
After getting Timothy’s food delivered – a döner kebab in the end – and tired beyond belief, she collapsed on the sofa, not even bothering to take her shoes off, and fell into nightmares of blood, red crystal, and carnivore teeth.
She awoke early the next morning, and the hope that it had all been a bad dream quickly faded.
Vampires were real. It was unlikely that Amber worked alone. Harri-Bec had killed but one of many. And soon, they would be coming for her.
*
Dawn broke in the Cabinet Office, but Gabriel Seymer had already been up for some hours.
Something had happened in Hackney last night. Reports of a chicken shop, the customers and staff massacred, a fight on an Overground train that left a carriage severely damaged, and a Freightliner whose driver insisted he had hit a person, but when the wheels were checked, all that had been found on the tracks were small red pieces of crystal.
He had called an emergency Cobra meeting. Concern lined his face.
“It’s happened again,” Seymer said, after a long, contemplative look at the dossier, fingers steepled. “More anomalous persons. This time, it looks like a whole Overground train saw it.”
“Not a lot we can do about the human brain,” Afua Boateng said, sipping a cup of hot coffee. “They’ll be telling their friends, and their friends will be telling their friends.”
“We need to do something about this urgently,” Seymer said. “They’re giving us the runaround. Since the Episode everyone’s been on edge. People need stability. They need normality. Without it, there will be anarchy. They’re going to be after our heads if we don’t get these frea—” He stopped himself. “These people under control.”
“We are retraining a lot of good people for SAID-MI5,” Anthony Regent said. He sipped from a mug of hot tea. “I’ve seen the dossiers. We’ve handpicked the very best from the most élite among our forces. No more tin soldiers. We’ll be ready to get out there again soon enough.”
At the end of the table, Barnabas Mortimer was smiling contemplatively. He didn’t have anything to drink in front of him. “It’s only going to get worse,” he said, cheerfully. “The freaks are everywhere.”
“Pessimism is not helpful, Mortimer,” Regent said. He was still sore from Mortimer’s jabs during the university siege.
“It’s so obvious, though. They’re everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. In homes, shops and schools, businesses up and down the country. I dare say there’s a few of them working in the Civil Service as we speak.”
He smiled strangely. He smiled at them in the way a skull smiles.
Quiet, timid Douglas Baird was the next to speak.
“The, erm—” His voice came out squeaky and he cleared his throat. “The City bailout distraction operation seems to have worked, Prime Minister. Nobody has questioned that government funds have disappeared into nothing for…for Project LUCIFER. Prime Minister.”
“Oscar-worthy,” Mortimer said.
Baird looked at him hatefully.
“Good,” Seymer said. “That should help them towards adequately containing and controlling the subject. As for how to proceed outside this room, continue as normal, listen to the Director of Communications’ advice and stay quiet about the situation. If anyone asks, deny as plausibly as possible. Afua is right, we can’t keep the information from leaking out, but we can still control the narrative as best as possible. Once we have a working SAID again, we’ll be able to start rounding these people up and getting them under control.”
“Will that be all, Seymer?” Mortimer asked.
Seymer glared at him.
“Prime Minister?” Mortimer corrected, mockingly.
“Yes, that will be all,” Seymer said.
They stood, and began to file out.
“You look tired,” Regent said to Mortimer, half in jest. “Not had time to pick up a coffee?”
“Oh no,” Mortimer said, smiling. “I don’t drink coffee.”
Regent looked at him, puzzled, then walked away without another word.
Another time, another place…
This work is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except the illustration, which is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
ARC THREE: NEW CULTURE
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