The New Weird (43 page)

Everything after that was a blur.

First: the big one started to hack off his other arm so that he was left completely helpless. But alive.

Second: the little one was doing something he couldn't work out, untying his pantaloons and dragging them down around his ankles, but leaving them there so his legs were tied.

Third: the big one sat down on his chest, pinning him to the ground (as if he was capable of doing anything anyway).

And it was then that the real pain started.

Little Sister liked to keep her blade raw and jagged so that, when she cut somebody, it was going to hurt, which is exactly what she was intending now. She took a grip of Whorefrost's penis and started sawing through it with a lazy vigour, and the screams of Whorefrost confirmed the fact that her intentions were being well met.

Whorefrost may have been bleeding to death already, due to the gushing stumps of his missing arms, but he was going to die by choking on his own cock. Little Sister made sure of that when she rammed it down his throat; and, to this extent, no one could fault her for not remaining true to her word.

The removal of Whorefrost's cock had been a piece of butcher's work, deliberately undertaken with a fastidious lack of care. The removal of his testicles, however, was a different affair, whereby Little Sister demonstrated an expertise and slight of hand that was worthy of a master surgeon. She sliced open his egg-sac and eased the testicles into an alchemical container that would keep them nice and fresh for whatever purposes they had in mind.

Which is why the Sisters of No Mercy were already making their way south, to the City of Thrills, to rendezvous with their linear informers ― the Covenant of Ichor.

Things were things happening in the City of Thrills. Things were always happening in the City of Thrills.

But not like today.

Up until now, the City of Thrills was a vacuum of architectures avoiding collapse. Now, however, it seemed like the collapse was inevitable.

But it wouldn't be the buildings. No. The feeling of collapse was wholly concentrated on the people ― not the people people, but the
other
people.

Some of them were here.

The Light That Never Shines could feel it, as surely as she would feel a knife in the guts.

Guts? Why was she thinking
Guts?

In spite of the prodigious range of her mathematical genius, the Light That Never Shines had only a vague presentiment of why she was feeling the way she was now. But she was seldom wrong, so it seemed right that she should expose her feeling to the failsafe scrutiny of a few calculations.

She stopped to take a seat outside a winery where some poets and philosophers were sitting on stools arranged around half a dozen massive barrels. She bought herself a skin of wine and proceeded to knock it back like there was no tomorrow.

Maybe there wouldn't be.

When she had reduced herself to a suitable level of artificial calm, she wrangled through the various permutations and, within an hour or so, had come to a conclusion.

Some of them were here. But the odds, she reckoned, were in her favour.

She gazed into her tumbler and began to brood. Then one of the poets from an adjacent barrel took notice of her (you could tell he was a poet because of his wide-brimmed hat). He rose and took a seat beside her, the way that linear people sometimes do.

"Are you lonely, friend?" he asked, setting a fresh-filled skin of wine on the barrel before them. "Are you a poetess? Is that what ails you? I can well understand the burden of fashioning words into things of beauty. It is my trade, too."

She looked at him as placidly as her anxious mood would allow.

"No, she said. "I'm."

The poet frowned. "What, my friend?"

"A mathematician."

"Oh," said the poet, "I see."

But the Light That Never Shines could see he couldn't see anything. "And what can your mathematics tell us of our world?" he asked. "Can it tell us as much as poetry?" "It can tell us that we're doomed."

"Well," he laughed, "if that's the case, then so can poetry." "But mathematics can tell us
when."
The poet stared.

"Lady Mathematician," he said, "I wonder if you are not a poetess, after all."

"No," she said. "But if you come with me I'll show you what I am." She adjusted her skin to make herself more alluring. The poet gasped.
Even if I cannot show you why.

The Light That Never Shines walked anonymously through the dimming streets. It was nearing twilight, her favourite time of day. She had adjusted her skin-tone to suit the occasion. People passing by her may have registered her presence in some subliminal way that their awareness, however, couldn't account for. She was seen and, yet, she remained unnoticed.

She had taken the poet into a backstreet with promises of sexual gratification, but the pleasure had been entirely hers. She had peeled him like a piece of fruit, absorbing his skin with an orgasmic thrill that had restored her to her uttermost vitality. And now it was time for her to act.

Time for her to summon the Psychomatics.

The Gutter stood out like a moth among butterflies. He didn't try to hide the fact. Instead, he was a gaunt-looking fucker with sleepy eyelids that hooded his eyes and made him look like he was capable of doing very bad things.

He was.

He eyeballed people as he walked passed them: they didn't hold his gaze. They looked away like he'd sent an electric shock through their line of vision. This was typical of the Gutter, who was careful to exert his influence over people.

He had found the Salon of Catastrophists on a street called Patron's Way. Patron's Way divided the Cymbeline and Cerebral Districts and was one of the city's liveliest thoroughfares. This explained the heavy presence of City Arbiters idling among the gregarious hordes, with studded coshes dangling from their wrists.

Which, of course, presented certain difficulties when it came to organising an open confrontation with the Psychomatics.

Which is why the Gutter had developed a plan.

The Covenant of Ichor led them to the door of the stairwell for the office of the Information Syndicate.

"I warn you, Sisters, it's an ugly sight." The leader of the local order smiled faintly. "Men are rarely beautiful, especially when they're mutilated. The sight of them may please you nevertheless."

"No," said Little Sister. "It will. Let's go."

The smell of the corpses grew stronger as they ascended the stairs. When they reached them, the Sisters were indeed pleased, but not for the reasons the Ichorites were thinking.

The Sisters of No Mercy quickly assessed the situation ― two corpses with their throats cut; the other sliced open along the underside of the belly, with bits of him still hanging out.

"Interesting," said Little Sister.

"Very," Big Sister agreed.

"The two gooks at the door were taken out with minimum fuss, leaving plenty of time for interrogating the Information Master."

"In more ways than one," said Big Sister.

"Quite. These gooks can count themselves lucky."

"Very lucky."

"But not
that
lucky."

"Not fucking lucky at all."

Little Sister sat on her haunches and examined the Information Master. "Looks like he had one of his eyes removed first."

"Looks like he did."

"I guess it was a case of, Tell me, bitch, or I'll skewer the fucking other one."

"Guess it was."

"Well ― " Little Sister stood up ― "this Information Master looks like he was one hell of a fat cunt. The Gutter must have had himself a rare old treat."

"A very rare treat."

"But not as rare as we'll be having."

"No," said Big Sister, "not so fucking rare as that at all."

The Gutter entered the foyer of the Salon and was immediately accosted by two receptionists who asked him brusquely to declare his business.

"Catastrophe," he said, and proceeded to knock them unconscious with the butt of the Gutting Knife.

He hastened into the auditorium, where a debate involving about fifty attendants was fully underway.

Gradually, the feverish exchange between rival factions began to subside as the whiff of the Gutter spread among them like a toxic fume. Heads were turned. A mixture of bewilderment and disgust washed over their faces like a vapour.

"What is the meaning of this?" declared one wizened old scroat with a coiffed mustachio.

The Gutter fixed a stare on him. The mustachio drooped, perhaps for the first time ever.

"I have a message for the Psychomatics," he said.

The faces of the Catastrophists turned pale in unison.

"Tell them," said the Gutter, "I'll be waiting outside."

Which is where he was now, on the opposite side of Patron's Way, making no attempt to hide himself. He wanted to be seen. Or maybe they would smell him first.

Either way, he didn't have to wait long. And it was interesting. Because when the Psychomatics stepped out of the Salon they arranged themselves in a line and stared straight at him through the crowd ― four of them, all fit-looking fucks with headscarves wrapped around their ― No, there were five ― a lithe little bitch who looked like a wastrel, hardly noticeable at all.

The Gutter caught her eye and grinned. She was the one. And all the time she stared straight at him.

Clearly, she had recognised him for what he was.

The Light That Never Shines had dressed herself in a skin that made her look as ordinary as possible. As she led the Psychomatics out of the Salon, she quickly assessed the crowd. Within seconds, she saw him.

"There," she said. "Across the street."

"The filthy one?"

She gave a single nod.

"Stop here," she said. "Stare at him. I want to get a measure of his reactions, see if I can work out a weakness."

She couldn't. He didn't give her time.

Instead, he grinned and vanished up a lane that led into the Cerebral District ― an interesting choice.

"The dog wants for us to follow him," said one of her companions.

"All right," said the Light That Never Shines. "Let's do what the dog says."

The Covenant of Ichor were an underground sect of religious fanatics who adhered to the belief that it was the role of women to moderate the predominance of their masculine counterparts with whatever ruthless or violent measures were necessary.

The Sisters of No Mercy had, on occasions, aligned themselves to the Ichorites on the pretext of being volunteer assassins who were sympathetic to the Ichorite cause. The Ichorites were in awe of the Sisters, and saw them, perhaps, as a physical embodiment of an ethereal female influence which, they believed, permeated every aspect of animal, vegetable and mineral existence.

"And who's to say they're not fucking right?" Little Sister had said.

"Fucking
right," Big Sister agreed. "Even though they're fucking wrong."

But they weren't wrong about other things. They weren't wrong, for example, about where the Gutter had taken up his temporary residence in the City of Thrills.

"Interesting choice," remarked Little Sister when the leader of the local order told them.

"Very interesting," said Big Sister.

"But not a good one."

"No," said Big Sister, "not fucking good at all."

Little Sister turned to face the leader of the local order. "So, he killed the servitors and spilled their guts in the basement, right?"

"Right," said the leader of the local order. "The place is his."

"And now he's playing some game of chase with these fuckers from the Salon."

"Yes. It appears he's leading them to the Museum itself."

Little Sister looked at Big Sister. "What do you think, Sister?"

"I think he's fucking leading them into a fucking trap."

"Why?" said Little Sister.

"Because he's after someone."

"Who?" said Little Sister.

"Someone he wants to lead into a fucking trap."

"But," said Little Sister, "who the fuck would be dumb enough to fall for that?"

Big Sister smiled. "Someone who thinks they can trap him back."

"Someone like us?"

Big Sister nodded. "Someone
very
like us."

"But not as good."

Big Sister frowned. "You've got to be fucking kidding me."

The Museum of Darkest Arts was one of the most forgotten buildings in the entire city. To call it a Museum, in fact, was something of a misnomer. In truth, it was more a repository of disastrous failures accumulated over eons of artistic endeavour which had resulted, naturally, in its fair share of flops. Many of these flops had come to rest in the Museum of Darkest Arts, which had acquired its name more in jest than in earnest.

The building itself was largely obscured by the buildings around it, which wasn't a bad thing. Inside, it consisted of innumerable corridors, stairways and halls, all of which were bent out of shape and designed as if by an architect bordering on insanity. The near darkness of its interior was also patrolled by two decrepit servitors who were now lying dead in one of its many basements ― their throats cut, their bellies razed.

The Light That Never Shines could sense the aura of death when she entered, but couldn't be sure if this was the result of a mathematical or sensory deduction. She was sure, however, about her plan.

"We split up," she said, ignoring the uneasy looks of her companions.

She was reckoning on implementing an increased number of distractions by instructing the Psychomatics to wander separately through the Gutter's hunting ground. If they remained as a group, the Gutter would monitor them and trap them too easily. By multiplying the targets, she would improve the ratio of possibilities as regards turning the hunter into the hunted.

It was all about odds; and, from the point of view of saving her skins, her plan was absolutely necessary.

Toran Finniff was a specialist in pyrotechnics who had joined the Psychomatics over a year ago. He wasn't adept at stealth missions like this one. He was usually a behind-the-scenes man who preferred operating from afar.