Paper Cities, an Anthology of Urban Fantasy (19 page)

The thing in the pinstripe suit lay on its back in the snow, arms and legs splayed out. It appeared dead. The other creature ran around it in circles, flakes of snow caught in its blond curls. Its hands were blue with the cold, but it didn’t seem to notice. Then, suddenly, pinstripe sat up. It fixed Hemog and Alex with its tiny cluster of beady eyes, and something seemed to unzip beneath its chin. Fluid dribbled out down its tatty shirtfront, and then two huge wicked looking fangs like shards of glass slid out. It lifted its gun hand.

“Inside!” Said Hemog and shut the door.

Alex was too shocked to say anything and went through to the sitting room. Alehouse followed. He went over to the window, which faced onto the garden, and put his front paws on the windowsill and looked out. Alex stood beside him.

There were no shots though, only a terrible shriek of fury. The creature was on its feet again and was holding its shredded wrist in its good hand. It flapped it and tried to point it at the cottage, but it was useless. Alehouse chuffed contentedly beside Alex, who patted his head and watched as the two beasts turned and stalked away. They disappeared back into the Welts.

Hemog came into the sitting room. Alex looked up at him. He smiled and suddenly Alex was crying.

Hemog came over and gave Alex a hug. His huge paws patted Alex’s back, and he could smell the good smell of sawdust and varnish on his overalls. Alex snuffled and felt Alehouse nuzzle the back of his knee. Eventually he pulled himself together. Alex straightened up, sniffed and coughed. He wiped his nose on the back of his hand.

Alex looked up. Hemog was smiling.

“I’m okay,” he said softly. Hemog ruffled his hair and stepped over to the window. The snow was falling less dramatically now and had yet to cover up the scuffed tracks in the grass where Alehouse had seen off the beasts.

“Who are they, Hemog?” Alex asked. “Why are they here?”

Hemog was silent for a moment. Behind them the fire roared.

“Drivid and Stemp.” He said. “The Basilisk and the Marksman.”

Alex didn’t know what to make of these frightening sounding names. “There were two others. They attacked my cottage before I came here. One on stilts and one with a rusty old trampoline.”

Hemog nodded. “Pak-Pak and Quetapin. Toyceivers.”

Hemog turned from the window. Behind him Alex could see the Welts disappearing into the distance, bare trees like spines on the back of an ancient, cold, cold beast.

“Have they come for me?” Alex said in a quiet voice.

“Yes, Alex.” He said. “And others like them. That’s why you have to be brave. We must leave soon. Twilight will bring them all, and already the sky is darkening”

Alex looked past him again, and sure enough, the strip of sky above the Welts was purpling down to night.

Hemog put his hands on Alex’s shoulders. “There‘s much to tell you, Alex.”

But before he could say anything else there was a sudden and awful explosion of noise from the Welts. It sounded like a circus load of animals blundering around tearing up trees and bushes.

Alehouse snarled. “Right,” said Hemog. “This is it. Let’s get to the cellar.”

•

Hemog and Alex went through the cottage, locking up and fixing shutters. Alex spared a moment to look out of the front bedroom window, but all he could see was a stand of trees at the end of Hemog’s garden dimly lit by light from the coach lamp over the front door. The few lit trunks looked like the bottoms of thick silver cables, which reached up into the darkness, tethering something vast and unknowable, somewhere above. The snow-covered grass appeared as smooth and mysterious as the wide white screen of the picture palace he had visited once as a little boy.

Then, like grotesque images projected onto that screen, they began to come, edging onto the whiteness from the dark border of the Welts.

Alex banged the shutters closed and locked them then returned to the top of the stairs. His heart was hammering in his chest, and he felt sick with fear.

He paused in the stairwell and looked down. Hemog was by the front door pulling on a pair of boots. He was speaking soothingly to Bong, who was winding himself around Hemog’s legs. Courage, Alex, he told himself and went down to join them.

Beneath the stairs was a small wooden door. Hemog opened it and reached in to find a light switch. The light revealed a rickety flight of stairs. He gestured for them to go down, but before they could something hit the front door with enough force to splinter the frame.

“Down we go,” Hemog said. His voice was as calm and steady as ever, but there was a different look in his eyes to any Alex had seen before. Something like anger and regret together with a fierce look of great and unfathomable protectiveness. It made him look stronger than ever.

Above, Alex could make out a now familiar sound. Someone was on the roof, battering at the tiles: Pak-Pak.

Something crashed against the front door again, and suddenly cold night air was blowing in and something was out there on the porch craning in at them. It had a thick, gray neck and a tiny head, all teeth, like a cricket ball studded with fishhooks. It made a sound unlike anything Alex had ever heard before, like paper endlessly tearing.

Alehouse snarled and leaped at the beast.

The creature reared up, its body wedged in the doorway. Alehouse hit it low down, and they both tumbled out into the garden. Alex could hear snarling and mighty barks and the sound of a terrible struggle. He looked up at Hemog, who shook his head.

“We must go now, Alex.” He said. Bong was standing in the doorway, tail flicking back and forth. His ears were back, and he looked caught in two minds.

“Bong,” Alex said. “You coming?”

He turned his head to look at them, standing in the hall by the cellar door, uplit by the soft yellow light. Outside came the sounds of growling and roaring, things slithering and purposeful. Something
with a head the size and shape of a marrow waddled into the light carrying blades.

Bong hissed but had to dodge as it slung a blade at him. It flew over Bong’s rump as he leaped aside and embedded itself in the bottom of the banister rail. Bong skidded on the wooden floor and bounded past us down the cellar stairs.

Alex followed him. Then Hemog ducked under the lintel and closed and bolted the door behind him. They went down into his cellar.

The cellar was Hemog’s workshop. In the middle of the floor was a huge workbench made of ancient pine. It was littered with bits of wood and metal, cogs and clockworks, oilcans, drill bits, engine parts and electronic circuits. There were tiny motors, resistors, amplifiers, test tubes, canisters and beakers. Against the wall Hemog had installed a lathe, a sanding belt and an angle grinder. Beneath the stairs stood his band saw, his pride and joy. The walls were hidden behind cabinets and shelves full of tools and equipment, and the whole room was sweet with the smell of varnishes, linseed oil and paint.

Hemog went over to a hook on the wall and took down an old, oil-stained tool belt. He buckled it around his waist and began moving around the cellar taking things from drawers and boxes and putting them in the loops and fabric pouches on the belt. When he was satisfied, he turned to Alex.

“Take anything you want, Alex. We’ve got a journey ahead of us, so anything might be useful.”

Alex looked around. He took a few things, tools mostly, a pot of glue, a few rolls of wire and tape, stuff he didn’t think Hemog had selected. He still had his short handled axe in his bag along with some apples and a thick slice of bread he’d grabbed from his kitchen earlier.

He hefted the bag. Not too bad. He slung it over his shoulder.

“Ready to go?” Hemog asked.

Go where, Alex thought. Upstairs he could hear the sounds of things moving through the house. Something flickered past the cellar door, its shadow darkening the gap between the door and the frame and a line from a very old poem, read to him by Hemog many years before — a verse which had chilled him deliciously at the time — came suddenly to his mind, with its strange and haunting rhythm:

Stay sharp when the shadows flex in the lines between the doors
.

And then, hard on its heels, another:

Something of the town not seen since childhood
.

Not there, Alex thought. Oh, please, not there.

•

Hemog went over to the far wall. “Give us a hand, Alex,” he said. He began to push against the side of a tall glass-fronted cabinet. Together they slid it across, revealing a hidden door in the wall. Hemog unbolted it and pulled it open. It juddered against the floor, so old and swollen was it. Beyond stretched a dark tunnel.

“It comes out beneath my shed at the bottom of the garden,” Hemog said. He unclipped a torch from his belt and switched it on. He squatted down and shuffled into the cramped corridor, the beam of light swaying ahead. Alex went in after him and pulled the door shut with some effort. In the dim light he could make out two heavy iron bolts, one at the top of the door, the other at the bottom. He slid them home and went after Hemog.

At the end of the tunnel a trapdoor was built into the ceiling. Hemog again slid back bolts and pushed up the trap. He said, “Do you mind?” and lifted Bong up into the shed. “Alex,” he said and cupped his hands. Alex stepped up and he hoisted him up. Alex took the torch from Hemog and shone it down into the tunnel. Hemog stood fully upright and pulled the rest of him into the shed.

In the torchlight Alex could make out lots more tools and a smaller bench with a couple of vices bolted to the side of it. There was a smoky-looking wood burning stove with a blackened flue in the corner, with a small pile of apple wood logs stacked beside it.

Hemog went to the door. “Put the torch out,” he said. They were plunged into darkness as Hemog silently opened the shed door and peered out. He stepped onto the path, and Alex and Bong followed. They looked up towards the back of the house.

It was swarming with beasts. Great things with wings beat at its roof, things humped and segmented writhed and jabbered at ground level, throwing themselves at the walls and windows. From somewhere Alex could hear the unmistakable sound of Quetapin’s trampoline creaking and flinging him skywards. And above it all, shaking with whatever emotion drove him, atop his monstrous stilts, quivered the figure of Pak-Pak. The cottage looked like something held between old splintering tweezers.

Hemog turned his back on the devastation and trod quietly around to the rear of the shed. Alex went after him and found him rooting around in some bushes. There was a creak and a hole in the fence was revealed as Hemog lifted some planks. They crawled under the fence and stood looking out onto the edge of the Welts. Alex risked turning the torch back on and played the beam over the perimeter. There did not seem to be anything too threatening out there, so they began to edge into the cover of the trees. Hemog took one look back and Alex saw sorrow appear momentarily on his face, no doubt for Alehouse, his mighty companion. Hemog sighed, and then together they went into the Welts.

Alex had never been into this part of the Welts. This was where the forest grew wildest and thickest, and somewhere beyond and within lay old dark towns, mostly industrial, linked by a single railway line. Further, many miles away, was the sea. Alex had never seen the sea. Some evenings, when they were sitting by the fire playing Senegal checkers, Hemog would tell him about the glorious town of Quay-Endula. A town spread throughout the steep hills surrounding a great blue bay. A place of turrets and spires and fabulous follies, rambling pavilions, markets full of billowing pastel tents and gazebos. Quay-Endula had fountains like cathedrals; it had plazas and parks, open-air theatres, carnivals, trams, cable cars strung between great glittering pylons and a pier like no other could compare.

The pier of Quay-Endula is a mile long, so they say, stretching out into the sea. It has its own fairground with a Ferris wheel the height of a skyscraper. It has helter-skelters and rocket ships that fly round on gleaming metal arms. It has buildings full of pinball machines and shooting galleries. All this built on a wooden raft held up on fragile iron legs, barnacle-brittle above an ever-swell of blue-green ocean.

Alex really wanted to go to Quay-Endula.

•

After some time of walking, they came to a break in the trees. Alex thought it might be a clearing, but it turned out to be a railway cutting.

They slithered down the bank and stood by the side of the rails. In the distance, a mile or so away down the track Alex could hear something approaching. He turned to face the direction of the sound and saw, as the tracks bent away through the forest, a deep orange glow like a bonfire. But this bonfire
groaned
.

He looked up at Hemog and saw that he was smiling.

The fire grew closer, the noise building and thrumming. They felt the ground beneath their feet tremble with its approach. Breathless, Alex waited. And saw it rumble into the cutting.

It drove a great caul of sparks before it, firefly debris from its shearing wheels. It was an iron bulk, a locomotive salvaged from a crusher. It was a square-backed, steam-driven thing of lonely nightlong industry. Driverless it thundered, following its midnight magnet through the forest. It had no lights, just the blazing cloak of molten swarf, which cooled and twinkled over its channeled flanks.

Rail Grinder uproared past them, a dreadful, gorgeous machine, and it steamed and bellowed and reaped the rails of rust.

“Come, on,” Hemog shouted over Rail Grinder’s terrible noise. They ran down the tracks, following the stately rocking of the locomotive’s back end.

Hemog scooped Bong up and swung him onto the footplate. Alex didn’t need a lift this time, just threw himself, whooping, on behind him. Hemog trotted along beside Railgrinder, grinning, then grabbed a rail and joined them in the open cab.

They stood there, rocking and bathed in firebox heat, the whole world full of clangs and ferment and turbulent row. The night stank of coal dust and engine oil, hot pistons and sparks.