The Neon Court (49 page)

We said, “It’s all right. You’ll be all right.”

And couldn’t quite believe it was us who was speaking.

“Sorcerer?”

“You’re all right, Oda. You’ll be OK.”

“You made me go to hell.”

“Didn’t mean to. Didn’t want to.”

“I’m going to burn. For ever and ever. I’m going to burn.”

“No.”

“Up in flames.”

“No.”

“I … I am … we … I am … please I …”

We reached out crookedly across the ground, found the tip of her shoe, rested our fingers on its edge. “We’re sorry. Oda? Forgive us.”

“Can you … can you stop us?”

“No.”

“Why not? Why can’t you stop us?”

We crawled a little nearer, shaking with the effort. “We know what hell is, Oda.”

A sound that might almost have been a laugh started from her. “Of course you do.”

“It’s the pit. The big, black, endless falling pit. The one that sends sane men mad. The one that’s so wide and dark and deep that you don’t even bother to try to climb. It’s the one with no hope at the bottom but just enough light at the top that you can remember the things you’ve lost, even though you can never get them back. And just enough light gets through that you can glimpse countless horrors, but you have no way to tell anyone else what they are, and not enough light to see that they are anything more than shadows. You are going to hell, Oda.”

A laugh that might have been a sob.

“You’ve seen it, haven’t you? That big black pit, lined with human arms that try to grab you as you go by. You’d have to have seen it, otherwise Blackout wouldn’t have been able to get in. You see, that’s what
Blackout is. An endless falling into black. Doesn’t just join with anyone, doesn’t just eat the eyes of anyone. Only those who’ve seen too much.”

“Perhaps we should eat you,” she whispered. “Everyone sees what we are, at the end. No matter how rich or beautiful or powerful or bright, everyone sees. It’s why they tear their eyes out.”

“But only a select few
become
what you are. You wiggle in under their skin, get into the blood, this big black endless pit sitting in the middle of them, and you keep them walking and you keep them talking and anyone who so much as looks at you, they get a glimpse, just a glimpse, of what you are and that’s more than enough, more than much much more than enough. I can see why you decided to use Oda.”

“We are the same.”

“Her body, her life.”

“We are … I am … we are not using. We are the same.”

“Which one are you now?” I asked.

“I … we …”

“Monster, human? Monster, human, monster, human, monster, human, which one?”

“Matthew? I didn’t mean it … the ones who died were …” Her fingers found mine. “Kill me?”

“Can’t.”

“Kill me?”

“Can’t. Sorry. Can’t.”

“We are … we are so strong and we are … we are for ever and so … we have seen so far. Please make it stop?”

“Can’t. You’re dead, Oda. You’ve been dead a while. Blackout got into the blood. Keeping you alive. That’s why I can’t kill you. Even if I destroyed your body, Blackout would live on, a shadow in your bones, a darkness in your dust. I’m sorry.”

“Then what use are you?” she snarled. “You couldn’t even save her!”

“I’m sorry. We’re sorry.”

“We were … we had … it is the fear that keeps us alive, you can’t stop that, not ever, you can’t make us go away, you can’t stop it, there’ll always be a footstep in the dark, a thing at the end of the alley …”

“I know.”

“You can’t ever kill us!”

“I know. You going to kill me? Oda?”

Hesitation. Her grip was driving the blood from our hand. Then, “You are damned, sorcerer.”

“You and me both.”

“I didn’t … I don’t want to …”

“By your theology, Oda, you’re going to hell. And me too. And so many other people. JG. Dees. Toxik and Lady Neon, Penny and Sinclair. The liars, the gamblers, the cheats, the men who lust, the women who succumb, the desperate who pulled one last desperate act, the rich, the greedy, the overweight, the vain, the glorious, the proud. We’re all going to burn. This being the case, are you really ready to drag us all down that little bit faster?”

She said, “How do I make it stop?” And in the same breath, “We won’t!” cut off sharp.

I crawled onto my knees, head turned in what I hoped was vaguely her direction. “Blackout needs you.”

“We don’t we don’t we are for ever we don’t stop we don’t we don’t!”

“You’re the only girl in the city can stop it.”

“We won’t go we won’t we won’t we won’t!”

“I can’t help you.”

“Useless useless useless we won’t!”

I tangled my fingers tighter in hers. She heaved down a ragged breath, hissed, “Sorcerer!”

“Still here.”

“This could be you, huh?”

We felt something tighten in our – my – stomach. “No,” we breathed.

“Just you wait until you’re like us me us me I …” She gasped in air again, shaking with the strain. “How do I make it stop?!”

“Two of you in one body,” I replied. “Two of you, tied up together. Can’t kill one without killing the other, no Blackout without Oda, no Oda without Blackout. Do you see?”

“No!”

“You look at Blackout and you go blind, your eyes run with blood, Blackout is so powerful now, he’s so much of you, Oda, he’s got so deep inside. Do you see?”

“No, I don’t I don’t we won’t we won’t …”

“You got to push him out.”

“Do you know how Robert Bakker beat Blackout last time?” I asked.

“No no no no no we weren’t we weren’t never beaten never …”

“He was there when Blackout moseyed on into Woods, turned his eyes to putty. He was there when everyone else was dead and do you know what, the great secret of how he beat Woods, the great, towering mystery at the heart of it all? Woods was an orphan. So was Bakker. They were children together. Woods killed everyone who came near him, but couldn’t quite bring himself to kill his one and only friend. Oda-Blackout. Not one without the other.”

I could hear ragged breath, an asthma attack happening in wheezing gulps beside me, words trying to form between lips shaking too hard from the effort of speech, and then, blurted like vomit trying to come, “Look at us!”

“No.”

“Look at us!”

“No.”

“We are we are we are the pit we are we are the things in the night the things the we are the things you made made us fear fear shit disgrace shame fear the thing in the night thing at the end of the alley nothing there nothing there just shadows but fear so much fear we are we are we are …”

“Oda.”

“We are we are
we are We Are
…”

“Oda Ajaja.”

“
WE ARE
…
!
” She shrieked out the words and then caught them, seemed to fold in on the sound and force it back down before it could find its way.

Silence.

The rain drummed busily on the square.

Water rolled between the paving stones.

“Look at me,” she said. “Matthew? Look at me.”

I reached up to the scarf around our face. Hooked my fingers under the fabric. We shrank back inside. I pulled it away, eyes still shut underneath, opened them a crack, saw darkness, opened them a little further, light coming unbidden to our fingertips. Blinked away dryness and blurry fatigue. Oda was right in front of me, a few inches at most, eyes like pudding, face scratched, dirty and bloodied. Nail marks in the skin
around her eyes, shallow and hesitant, stop-starting. She stared at us with broken bloody eyes and it took every ounce of my will to stop us closing our eyes.

She looked.

I looked back.

I mumbled, “Hi.”

“Which one are you?” she asked, her fingers tracing round the hollows of our blue eyes. “Human, angel?”

“Right now?” I sighed. “Neither.” I reached up, my fingers leaving thin bloody paint lines where they brushed beneath the empty mess of her eyes, and rested on her skin. “You?”

“We … I … I am … I …”

“Oda Ajaja,” I repeated gently. “Sister of Kayle, who went mad and did evil. Sister of Jabuile, who was none of the above.” I put my head on one side, and added, “Oda, also known as psycho-bitch. Hi there. Nice to see you.”

She smiled.

“Hi,” she replied. “Nice to see you too.” Then, “Bye, Matthew.”

“Goodbye.”

And she closed her eyes.

She let out a sigh.

And the breath kept on coming.

The air around her lips shimmered like a heat haze. It twisted and writhed like something living in it, trying to break free. Smoke curled from her nostrils, hung in the tiny cracks of her lips, condensed, thickened, spread upwards. It rose up from her and stretched out, turning in on itself like a storm in a bottle, snapped and flickered little black tongues at the air, drifted upwards and out further, and still it kept coming. It seemed as if an elephant’s breath had been held inside her tattered lungs, as if the smoke had been pumped into her and through her, and as it went out her body twitched and jerked like a stiff puppet on a string, or the spasms that precede vomiting, her head turned back, her fingers clenching and unclenching at her sides, and for a moment in the smoke that spun and spiralled around her, I thought I saw fingers, clawing, trying to get out, before being sucked back down into the fumes. Blood began to roll down her face. It began to spread from the hole in her heart, beating out with a faint pulse, began to trickle down
her middle and along her arms, spill from a dozen injuries she hadn’t even noticed that she had.

Her shoulders bent forward, her chest seemed to curl in on itself. Her arms bent back and then forward, covering her head as she doubled down and the flow of black smoke from her mouth faltered, began to trickle to a nothing while overhead this cloud spun and writhed and tried to break free of itself. I staggered to my feet, staring into it, and thought I could hear …

No no no no no no

Please don’t

He’s coming for

Never find out

Won’t tell

Nothing to fear

Nothing to see

Footsteps in the dark

We’re waiting for you

Then I smelt it. The cold breeze, it smelt of the river, even through the rain, it tangled itself into the belly of that spinning cloud and split it in two, then spun and split it again, gentle and silent. I saw Bakker, standing to one side, watching the smoke tear and part and begin to clear. I felt blood in the twin crosses on my right hand. I thought I could hear …

Water running out to sea

No no no no no no!

Waiting
…
for
…

Rain falling on a metal roof

No no no no NO NO NO NO WE ARE

The beating of mighty wings

we are we are we are we

Footsteps walking away

Something sizzled.

We looked slowly.

A single lamp, on the edge of the square, a fake-Victorian thing of black iron. I saw the filament heat up orange-red inside the fat round bulb. It flickered out for a second, then tried again, made its way to hot white and, with a splutter, burst into light.

Then another.

There was almost no smoke left now, melting in the rain.

Another lamp.

Inside the waters of the fountain, floodlights warmed up, casting illumination up the misformed backs of things that might have been dancing fish, or dolphins, or some entirely other unlikely marine species.

The lights went on outside St Martin-in-the-Fields, striking proud white columns and dirty white steps. They went on in the National Gallery behind great barred windows and polite shopfronts selling books and art and impressionist tea towels, in the windows of the embassies and the fronts of the shuttered cafés. They snapped on one at a time down the length of the Mall and behind the leafless trees that ran towards Hungerford Bridge. They went on inside the sleeping taxis parked outside Charing Cross, in the station and the subway stairs, in the theatres of St Martin’s Lane and above the little ATMs nestled behind Leicester Square. They went on in the CCTV cameras and the patient spinning yellow domes of the waiting repair trucks. They went on in the distant shapes of the London Eye, the BT Tower, and Centre Point, where once, not so long ago, a sorcerer called Robert Bakker had fallen to his death at the hand of one very angry apprentice, only to have his last breath bottled and filed for further reference.

From Hampstead to Hammersmith, Maida Vale to Morden, Hackney to Hounslow, Seven Sisters to Streatham, the lights came back.

Something fell to the ground.

I looked at it. I knelt down and turned its face up to the rain, to wash away some of the blood. Its eyes were closed, and I had no desire to open them again. It didn’t speak, didn’t breathe.

Oda Ajaja was dead.

In which those loose ends that can be are tied, and those that can’t be are studiously ignored by all.

The sun was down over Surbiton.

A man got off the train from Waterloo, as he did nearly every day of every week at this hour, and went to the bank. In the bank he paid in a couple of cheques, picked up a leaflet entitled “Pensions: What You Need to Know”, walked into the launderette next door, paid £5 for his freshly starched and pressed shirts, and, his goods safely stowed on his lap, rode a small single-decker red bus, into the heart of nowhere in particular.

At the end of a street of semi-detached half-timbered houses identical to all the other streets of semi-detached half-timbered houses, save for the addition of a Chinese takeaway on the corner, he got off the bus. He walked for some ten minutes past gardens of neatly mown grass, parkways lined with diligently cleaned Vaux halls and Volkswagens, turned left past the local Conservative Party office, and cut down a small alley between a bank of houses and a line of children-friendly gardens, complete with the occasional trampoline.

Halfway down this cut-through, which was one he used every day, he hesitated.

Did he hear anything behind him?

Did his heart miss a beat at the thought that there might be something watching?