Our Lady of the Streets (The Skyscraper Throne) (17 page)

Now when the Masonry Men jumped into the trench there was all but no pause until she heard them land. Beth stared as a grey hand crept up over the edge. She slashed
straight through the fingers with her spear. Her heart pounded hard in her ears and she was shivering, though she was drenched in sweat. Out of the corner of her eye she saw more fingers curling over the lip of the trench. She saw them brace to pull their owners up and she tried to turn, to get there, but her feet went from under her and her spear clanged loud in her ears as she dropped it. The air was thick, the world slow. Petris was yelling instructions to his stoneskins, but Beth couldn’t make out the words. Pen was shouting. Her dad was calling to her. But she had no idea what anyone was saying. Gaunt silhouettes pulled themselves up over the edge.

They were out of time.

She tried to stand, but failed. Her muscles wouldn’t respond. As she shifted, something in her pocket clinked and numbly she fumbled for it. A glass flask sat in her palm.

Childhood outlooks, proclivities and memories.

She looked up, searching for Pen, but she couldn’t see anything but dark grey bodies.
I
’
m so sorry, Pen
 – she forgot herself and tried to say it with her mouth, but no sound came out.

Claw-like fingers reached for her in the half-light. She batted at them weakly, but they slapped her hand away. She reached for her spear, but it was too far away. She twisted onto her back. Hands clasped her ankles and her elbows and tugged at her clothes. Grey figures leaned over her, pushing her down, and grey figures below her pulled her in. The ground softened like mud under her back – she
could feel it pooling in the folds of her clothes; feel the weight that was about to bear her under. The flask was cold in her hand. She didn’t want to die alone.

She jerked and thrashed her head and managed to tilt it upwards. She bit the stopper, yanked it out and spat it away, then closed her eyes and tipped the flask to her lips. The glass rattled on her church-spire teeth. The liquid that flowed into her mouth was freezing. She swallowed and it burned all the way down.

I can’t see.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t open my eyes.

There’s a weight on my chest and hands on my throat.

Where in Thames’ name is
Naphtha
?

…
there
’
s something …

My dreamless sleep clings to me like river mud. I panic, pulling against it, desperately fighting to wake up. My spear is in my hand and I lash out on instinct, laying about myself with it, not caring what I hit.

…
there
’
s something else …

The floor smells of concrete, but I can’t feel it. I reach out for it to sense its pulse, but I’m sealed off from it somehow. My spear-point connects with something solid and I can feel it grating along bone. The hands gripping me come loose and I lever myself to my feet, gasping.

Why can’t I open my eyes? My eyelids won’t answer me, won’t respond to my brain. There’s something else – some … other
influence
 … It’s holding them shut. My skin feels
wrong, like my whole body’s too small and too
heavy
. The rhythm of my pulse is too complex
…

There
’
s something else in my head
, I think.

I reach for it, trying to remember, but it flees me like the memory of a dream.

At last my eyes flicker open. I gape around me at carnage.

There are Masonry Men everywhere, squirming and bleeding at my feet, swarming over flickering statues and glass-skinned bodies – I can see the glow is ebbing from their filaments. I stare but I can’t make sense of it …

The Masonry Men are
attacking
us.

I don’t understand. I can taste the panic in the back of my throat. I hold my hands in front of my face and they’re riddled with streets and scaled in rooftops; they’re washed in green light.

In the stories, this was how my Mother’s hands looked.

Screams jar the air and someone’s bellowing frantic instructions. My ears find a familiar sound in the cacophony: Petris’ voice.

‘My Lady!’ he’s calling. ‘Lady Bradley!’

Beth?
Her sullen face under messy hair fills my mind. Is she here? I cast around, but I can’t see her. I see the squirming, scrapping mass of clayling bodies on the floor and my heart clenches at the thought of her suffocating under them.

Beth!
I yell, in case she can hear me.
Beth! Beth!
 – but no sound comes out. My lips are shaping the syllable; I can feel the air moving past my teeth, but no voice emerges.

There
’
s something else in my head …

I can feel it on the edge of my consciousness, a knot of memory. I touch it, and it unravels inside my mind.

For an instant, I reel, nauseous and terrified – I have no sense of who or where I am – and then my awareness rushes into all the little crevices of memory like water flooding a cave and I remember—

—I remember where and how and
whose
body this is.

There’s something else in my head.

No, some
one.

I can feel Beth in here with me. I can remember everything she remembers; I know everything she knows. I hear myself counting to three and never getting there. A surge of regretful longing fills me, but there’s no time. I can’t let myself think. Instead, I move on instinct, my legs feeling numb underneath me as I force them into motion. They’re sick –
I
’
m
sick. The effort of the first few steps makes me dizzy. This body is exhausted and it responds sluggishly, but it does still respond. Beth’s consciousness gives way to mine in a way that terrifies me, but I run. I can still
run
. There’s a concrete wall in front of me, a blue car to my left and a bashed-up phone to my right, and I remember …

I remember why I have no voice.

I seize the handset and almost yank the flex out of the box in my haste. Grey hands tug almost pleadingly at me.

Please
, I pray,
please
.

A dial tone fills my ear. I hear clicks and buzzing static.

Somewhere in the manifold streets of this body, a phone exchange clicks in response.

I hear a crunch and a scream as a Pavement Priest falls somewhere to my left. From behind me, there’s a soft thud and a gust of decaying scent – Gutterglass? It must be.

And then a polite voice comes out of the receiver.
Hello?
Hissing and static.
Hello?
Other voices join it, a buzzing chorus, getting louder and louder and closer and closer, rushing towards us at the speed of electricity.
We
’
re coming do you hear us hold tight we
’
re coming
—

We love you.

I feel them before I see them. A prickling sensation ripples over the hands that are holding the receiver, and then, spilling from the mouthpiece and down onto the floor, fizzing like static and glittering like fibreglass, run thousands and thousands of tiny spiders.

We love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you …

They pour into the gaps between clayling bodies. The Masonry Men swat at them but there are far too many of them. I see Petris, an instant before his stone monk’s habit is obscured by thousands of arachnid bodies. The spiders are crawling over a stocky man – Beth’s dad? What’s he doing here? – and tracking through the blood that cakes his
face. They crawl over Pen and her eye widens as it catches mine; has some instinct told her that it’s not her best friend looking back her? There is motion behind me and in the corner of my eye I see Gutterglass. Minuscule spiders are spilling from her eggshells.

It’s like a punch in the chest, remembering for the first time how she lied to me.

The buzzing in the air rises to fever pitch and then the next instant it cuts out. I blink. The spiders have vanished, and so has everyone who was in contact with their needle-pointed feet.

The Masonry Men turn towards me: they’ve been robbed of their quarry. I can hear their dry, rasping breath, and one of them snarls and runs at me, his teeth bared. Another wave of dizziness hits me. The green light ahead of me flickers and darkness creeps in at the edges of my vision. I can’t even lift my spear. The muscles in the clayling’s legs tense as he prepares to spring.

We love you
, a voice whispers in my ear, and then the world dissolves in static.

‘
Beth, up here
.’

Beth climbed the fire escape onto the roof and there he was, sitting cross-legged on the slabs. He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees so that shadows filled the arched hollows of his ribcage. He smiled at her and pushed his dusty fringe out of his eyes. Behind him, the rhino etched in shadows and black paint loomed out of the side of a warehouse, its blank eyes watchful.

Beth crossed the roof to him. Her feet felt like they
’
d give way and pitch her over at any moment, and her hands were shaking as she reached out to take his face in them. He stilled her trembling fingers with his own. The concrete-and-rain smell of him rose up to her. She was almost crying
.

‘
Is it really you?
’
she asked
.

His smile didn
’
t change. It was only from this angle, with his face tilted up at her, that she realised how sad he looked. He stood and kissed her fiercely, one hand on the small of her back, the wiry strength of him pulling her in
.

Her lips opened under his. He tasted the way she remembered, exactly that way. She could have been kissing her own memory of him.

Eventually he let her go and took a step backwards
. ‘
No
,’
he said
. ‘
Not really
.’

‘
Fil?
’

He turned away and sat on the lip of the building, his legs dangling over the side. There was something angry in the way his shoulders were hunched up
. ‘
Gutterglass told me once that all we are is memories
,’
he said. He spoke so quietly that she could barely hear him. His voice turned as hard and brittle as slate
. ‘
She lied – just like she lied about everything else
.’

Beth slid down and sat beside him, kicking her feet out over empty air. Cautiously, she slipped an arm around his shoulders. He leaned into her, but kept staring at the horizon. He didn
’
t blink, and none of the tension left his frame
.

‘
Johnny Naphtha said he took a complete copy of your mind – your memories, your beliefs, what you liked and what you didn
’
t
,’
Beth said
.

‘
He did
.’

‘
So it is you then. It must be – what else is there?
’

Fil
’
s laugh was quick and harsh
. ‘
What else is there? Everything!
’
He looked at her and she saw with a shock that there were tears in his eyes, clouded with limestone dust
.

‘
Sight and scent and sound, the texture of the world on my skin, the feeling of my friends in my heart
, you,
for Thames’ sake … My future, Beth, that
’
s what else: my whole
future.’

Beth fell back a pace at the ferocity in his voice
. ‘
I don
’
t understand
,’
she said
.

He looked at her, and his gaze softened, but his tone didn
’
t
. ‘
Right now
,’
he said
, ‘
your body
’
s sleeping and your mind – that bit of you
that
’
s still human – is walking the quiet streets of your brain with me. But when you wake, you
’
ll be back out there, in the world, changing things and making things. And me? I
’
ll still be in here, because this is all I am now. I’m a passenger. I have no body of my own, no way to interact with the world, no way to
be
in it. I
’
ve got no eyes to see new things, nor ears to hear them, no brain to form new synapses. I
’
ll never
learn
anything, ever again, except through you. I’ll never see anything new, ever again, except how you see it. A body is a future, Beth – don
’
t you get that? I
’
m frozen. I
’
m all memory. I
’
m the past
.’

He looked around at the immaculate empty buildings and the empty grey sky
. ‘
Your body is a city now, Beth. Your heart, lungs, skin, bone and brain are all riddled with streets. Your consciousness is a citizen of that city, but mine? Mine is just a refugee
.’

He cocked his head and then very quietly he said
, ‘
I have no home
.’

Beth didn
’
t know what to say
.

‘
You remember the first time we kissed?
’
he asked her
. ‘
On Canary Wharf, sitting on the Skyscraper Throne
.’

Beth smiled
. ‘
Of course I do
.’

‘
I don
’
t
.’

Beth started to protest
, ‘
That doesn
’
t make sense. How do you
—
?
’

‘
I know about it because you remember it – but it
’
s your memory, not mine. I know what it was like for you, but not for me. Know what the last thing I remember is?
’

Beth shook her head
.

‘
Standing in the synod
’
s factory with that recording substrate washing past my lips, looking down the length of the bottle at you and praying to my Mother you got out of that pool alive. Then I woke
up in that car park, with no idea who I was, where I was or what I was doing
.’

‘
You worked it out fast
.’
Beth kicked her legs
. ‘
Smart move with the Pylon Spiders, by the way. I never thought of calling them
.’

He snorted, and it echoed off the towers in a way that made Beth look back at the rhino.

‘
You
’
re their only food-source now. Free-range voice? They
’
ve never had it so good. They were never going to risk losing you
.’

‘
Put like that, I feel like a right plank for not thinking of it
.’

‘
Ah well, don
’
t beat yourself up. I
’
ve known them a lot longer than you have
.’

‘
Fil, you said you
’
re just a passenger
,’
Beth started, a little nervously, thinking of Pen and the Wire Mistress riding her
, ‘
but back in the car park – well, it felt a lot like you were driving
.’

‘
Yeah
,’
he sighed
. ‘
Sorry about gate-crashing back there. It was all on instinct. If it makes you feel better, you were always in control
.’

‘
I was?
’

‘
You could have shoved me off with a flick of a synapse – they
’
ve been your muscles for seventeen years. Who do you think you
’
re going to listen to, me or you?
’

Beth thought back to the moment his mind had surged into hers; that desperate moment when their consciousnesses had touched and she hadn
’
t known whether she was Beth Bradley or Filius Viae or both. He was right: it had been her decision, even then. It might have been made on instinct, a split-second choice, but it had been her choice nevertheless, to scramble to the back of her own skull and let him pilot her, because she trusted him, because unbelievably, there
’
d been hope again
—

‘
My body
,’
she said
.

‘
Yours,’ he confirmed
, ‘
and it could never be anyone else
’
s. They’re your eyes, your ears, your taste buds; everything is filtered through you
.’
His tone twisted through wistfulness into something bleaker
.

‘
It
’
s why I
’
ll never be alive again, not really. You need to grow to be alive, and you need a body to grow. And that
’
s where I come up empty
.’

‘
You do have a body
,’
Beth said, softly
.

‘
You mean the kid in the statue?’ He smiled at his lap, not at her
. ‘
I
’
m sure he
’
s a lovely fella. Maybe – if the claylings didn
’
t snatch or throttle him, which they almost certainly did – he
’
ll grow up big and strong; maybe he
’
ll even grow up into just the boy I remember being. Or maybe not – either way, it means nothing for me because I
’
m just a copy, a photo gathering dust on a shelf. Or at least I was until you happened along
.’

Beth looked at him sharply. Just a photo? The Fil she knew would never have used that metaphor. He hadn
’
t even heard of Hobnobs until she introduced him to them
.

That phrase had come from her.

To never learn anything else, to never change at all except through her … She tried to get her head around that level of dependency, but she couldn
’
t. Maybe he was right: maybe he wasn
’
t really alive at all
.

The wind picked up, the way it always seemed to when they were up there. She heard it rushing down between the buildings beneath their feet. It moaned hollowly and carried the sounds of distant construction: diesel-powered diggers and creaking cranes and rumbling dumper trucks, all overlaid with the roar of traffic,
the music of car-horns. The wind gusted and grew stronger and stronger, louder and louder, Beth strained to listen to it, the way it rattled the windows and hissed in the leaves; it was intelligible, it was a voice.

‘Beth,’
it said
.

She looked back at Fil. If this was a dream, she didn
’
t want to wake up. She didn
’
t want to leave him, not with that look in his eyes
.

‘
It
’
s okay
,’
he said
. ‘
I
’
ll be here when you get back
.’
His lip twisted
. ‘
Where else can I go?
’

‘Beth—’

Beth’s eyes flickered open. She was lying on her back. Grass tickled the back of her neck; cool air drifted across her face. Metal gantries crossed her vision like spiderweb strands, stretching up away into the night. Somewhere in the distance above her a light was blinking. It took her a handful of muddy seconds to recognise the place. She was lying directly under the Crystal Palace radio mast.

Something tickled the skin of her throat. A glittering little spider scurried off her neck and across to her ear where it let itself down by a thread from her earlobe, whispering, ‘
I love you
,’ to her as it passed.

‘
Yeah
,’ she muttered back, ‘
for getting us out of that I think I love you too
.’

‘Beth.’ Pen’s voice. The familiar, scarred, anxious face pushed into her field of vision.

‘
How long was I out?
’ Beth creaked up into a sitting position.

‘Only about five minutes, at first. Glas said to let you
sleep. She said we were safe for now, and you needed the rest—’

‘
She had a point
,’ Beth grumbled. ‘
I feel like I
’
ve been hit by a lava flow. I must have picked up another dose of that fever from the streets outside. Next time, maybe listen to the doc
’
s advice and let me snooze?
’

‘But – but I couldn’t.’ Pen’s eyes were huge in the darkness.

Beth frowned. ‘
Christ, Pen. I was kidding, I wasn
’
t really having a go
—’

‘No, B.’ Pen put a hand on her arm to silence her. ‘It’s your dad.’

*

He was sitting propped up against one of the tower’s metal feet with Gutterglass bending over him. Beth could see his splayed legs, his lolling feet, but everything from his waist up was obscured by a blur of frantically darting trash-arms.

‘
Dad!
’ She ducked in next to Glas, feeling the warmth of decaying rubbish radiating through the carpet-coat, and stopped dead. Her dad’s hands, clasped together on his stomach, were fish-belly white, his knuckles trembling. The left side of his face was as pale as his hands; the right side was a bright glistening red. His hair was soaked with still-wet blood.

Even then, it wasn’t the sight of her father that gave her the deepest chill, but Gutterglass’ fretful muttering as she worked. ‘I didn’t know – I didn’t know … I didn’t think to
check – I didn’t see – I didn’t
know
. Stupid, Gutterglass,
stupid
.’

‘
What? What didn’t you know – what? Glas?
’ Beth lifted her hands and put them down again. Her fingers felt thick and clumsy in her lap. ‘
Did a Masonry Man do this?
’

‘No.’ One pair of trash-hands was pressing down hard on the skin of her dad’s forehead. Glas’ rubber-hose thumb and forefinger were clamped in a ring around the nick just above his right eyebrow, the one Mater Viae had given him – the nick that Gutterglass had already stitched with tight loops of black thread, and yet fresh red blood was still seeping out of the seam. A blood-soaked plaster lay curled on the grass beside him.

Gutterglass’ own brow was stained with sour-milk sweat. Her four remaining arms frantically mixed and stirred phials of cloudy liquid; she briefly glanced at each and hissed in disgust before continuing to stir the next.

‘Come on, come on,’ she muttered, and then snarled in frustration, ‘These are
useless
. Where are those brick-fucking pigeons?’

‘
Pigeons?
’ Beth shook her head, not understanding. She laced her slate-covered fingers into her dad’s, trying to ease the trembling. He felt dreadfully cold.

‘Glas sent out pigeons for some kind of ingredient,’ Pen replied, her voice tight.

‘I’m trying to blend a dermal adhesive,’ Glas snapped, ‘but there’s nothing here that’ll set fast enough. You could have told me he was a haemophiliac!’