Dream London
First published 2013 by Solaris
an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,
Riverside House, Osney Mead,
Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK
ISBN (epub): 978-1-84997-640-4
ISBN (mobi): 978-1-84997-641-1
Copyright © 2013 Tony Ballantyne
Cover art by Joey Hi-Fi
The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.
DREAM LONDON
TONY BALLANTYNE
ONE
CAPTAIN JIM WEDDERBURN
C
RUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH.
Mmmmm, mmmmm. Crunch crunch crunch.
There was someone in my room, someone crouching at the bottom of the bed eating something. Enjoying it too, by the sound of it.
Mmmmmm, mmmmm. Crunch, crunch.
What time was it?
My mobile had stopped working months ago; I hadn’t bothered getting a clock. The threadbare curtains were lit by the yellow gas glow of the street lamps. I held my breath and listened for the knocking of the heating: the prehistoric machine that slumbered in the cellar woke me every morning, no matter how warm the night had been.
Silence. It could be any time between 10pm and dawn.
Mmmmm.
The bedroom door was locked, but things change in Dream London. I scanned the dim room through half closed eyes. The ceiling was a little taller, the room a little narrower than when I went to sleep. Ever so slowly, I slipped my hand under the pillow and found my knife – still the same knife, still in the same place.
The city changed a little every night, the people changed a little everyday. Christine had gone, and not one of the succession of women who crept into my bed had ever stayed more than one night.
Had I brought someone back to my room last night? Some woman drawn to the supposedly dangerous charm of Captain James Wedderburn? I had made some increasingly strange conquests in the past months, some I hadn’t always remembered making upon waking. Was one of those women now curled up at the bottom of my bed, crunching and slurping with every sign of enjoyment? I wasn’t going to find out by pretending to be asleep.
“Who’s that?” I said to the room.
The crunching paused, just for a moment, and then the lazy consumption resumed.
Mmmmmmm...
“Who’s there?” I raised my head and looked to the foot of the bed. I saw no one. I crept forward, the springs creaking beneath me, took hold of the brass rail and peeped over.
Two salamanders crouched on the floor, their bodies glowing red and gold with their own internal light. They’d got hold of a green beetle the size of a dinner plate and split it in two to lap at the yellow custard inside. One of them looked up at me with little jewelled eyes, licked its lips with a purple tongue and smiled in evident satisfaction.
Mmmmmm.
Two salamanders were worth a fair sum of money. I was just wondering if I could move fast enough to catch them both when someone spoke up behind me.
“Good evening, Captain Wedderburn.”
Startled, I turned to see the fat man lean from the shadows near the wall. He was balanced precariously on a little camping chair, the velvet-clad expanse of his ample backside spilling over the sides. He unfolded a handkerchief and mopped at the sweat on his forehead.
“Luke Pennies,” I said. “How did you get in here?”
As I spoke a wave of nausea that had been building almost unnoticed in my stomach rose to overwhelm me. I swallowed hard against the bile that rose in my throat.
Luke Pennies held out a hand. We both looked down to the glass vial in his pudgy palm.
“Two salamanders, one antidote,” he said, and he turned to look at the red stain on the bed where I had been lying. I pressed a finger to my left shoulder and felt the sticky wetness of blood.
The fat man smiled. “One thousand sovereigns and it’s yours.”
“I don’t have a thousand sovereigns. I don’t even have a thousand dollars.”
Luke closed his hand over the vial. He waved a finger at me.
“We both know that isn’t true, Captain. They say you’ve got an interest in every young woman this side of the city.” He winked. “Aye, and a straight twenty per cent from every transaction they make.”
“Nothing like so much as that.”
“You don’t deny you have money, though. It’s said that you can find a shop that will sell you anything in this city, Captain Wedderburn. I doubt you’ll find one in time to sell you the antidote you need. May I suggest that now would be the perfect time to start spending some of your ill-earned?”
I felt hot. Hot and sick. My nightshirt stuck to my body with sweat and blood. I had to fight not to throw up.
“Give that to me,” I said, reaching for the vial.
“Careful!” he warned. “This glass is thin. Any sudden shocks and I might accidentally break it.”
Slowly, I lowered my hand.
“This isn’t your style, Luke,” I said.
“Maybe not.” A spasm of anger on his face. “But you really pissed me off the other night, Jim. You crossed a line there.”
“Is there any point me telling you it wasn’t me?” I shook my groggy head. “Probably not,” I murmured. “Especially seeing as you’ve poisoned me.”
“I can see you understand,” said Luke Pennies, coldly. “So, which is it to be? One thousand sovereigns, or a slow death?”
He had a thin smile, a smile weighed out in ounces; it balanced a favour exactly with no warmth to spare. “That fire took half my property, Captain Wedderburn. It took three of my whores.”
“What fire?”
The rent on the smile had expired. He leant forward, little eyes hard.
“Don’t play dumb with me, Jim. You could see the blaze clear to the docks.”
“My name is used a lot in this city,” I replied. “Used a lot by a certain sort of person anyway. Everybody knows that I would have chased the whores from the building first.
You
must know that, Luke.”
My vision was blurring now. I felt my hands starting to shake; the bite at my shoulder was throbbing.
“People change,” said Pennies, but I could hear the edge of uncertainty in his voice.
“People change,” I agreed. “This city makes people change. But not that quickly.”
Again the bile rose. This time I could not choke it down. I spat something yellow onto the bed.
Luke Pennies stared at the spreading stain. Red blood and yellow bile. His voice was cold.
“Time to pay up, Jim.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, my head spinning. “People don’t change that fast. Not even you, Luke. You wouldn’t come to my room to murder me. That’s not your style. You want me murdered; you’d get one of your men to do it. That way, if the police caught up with you, made you read the Truth Script, you could honestly say it wasn’t you.”
I retched again, caught the vomit in my mouth, gulped it down.
“No, not your style at all. But if you could get your victim to commit suicide? That would be far more poetic. What if you got them to swallow a vial of poison? What a laugh that would be. And much safer, should the police come calling.”
My head pounded, the sweat was cold on my skin. My tongue was thick and coated in bitter bile. Even so, I strove to speak normally.
“I think that the effect of this bite will be wearing off soon. In fact, I’m willing to bet my life on it. So I’m going to give you a choice. You see my jacket hanging on the rack there?”
Through blurred eyes, I saw him turn his head. My jacket hung there in green and gold glory.
“There’s a pistol in the pocket.” I said. “You want me dead so much, take the pistol and shoot me. Otherwise, I suggest you take your camp chair and your vial of poison and you get out of here, right now. Because if you wait too long, I’ll shoot you myself. What do you say?”
Luke Pennies didn’t say anything. Or if he did, I didn’t hear it. My stomach was rising once more and I dropped to the floor and scrabbled under the bed, looking for the chamber pot. I pulled it out and vomited, all in one movement. Curled up over the china pot, stomach heaving, I was only vaguely aware of his leaving, of him trudging past, camp chair in hand. I didn’t care, each spasm brought up more rainbow vomit. I felt as if I was dying.
Eventually there was nothing left in my stomach. Still I retched into the full bowl, until eventually this too ceased. I lay on the floor, waiting for the spinning to stop, lost in the middle of the night.
I forced myself up, looked at the bloodstained bed, looked at the two salamanders now sleeping upon it, curled up around each other for warmth.
I needed to get outside. I needed some fresh air.