The sickly sweet smell of half-rotten flesh, the jingle of bells and the curving, beaked mask are the shop signs of the Phylomancer.
He stands at the street corner, bowed under the weight of the cages on his back in which his menagerie yips and yowls, barks and squeaks. Beneath the sweet stench of corruption is the sweeter tang of honey and the urinal miasma of damp leather.
His sleeves are rolled back from his gloved, claw-like hands, and the greenish, flaky skin, pocked with hexagonal wounds, crawls with the grubs and insects of his trade.
It is never silent with the Phylomancer; his familiars’ cacophonic chorus and the high hum of his insect courtiers create an unmistakable and unending sound. A song individual to each and every practitioner of his gruesome trade.
He lifts his mask a moment, scarred and scabbed flesh, cracked lips on show and crooked and pointed teeth behind them. His tongue uncoils like some bloated canal eel and – with great delicacy, a mosquito alights upon that swollen muscle and shares a gift of blood, a droplet of life from the patient before him.
The mask descends, giving his voice a strange, booming quality above the sounds of his zoological burden.
“The wound is infected. My grubs can eat away the diseased flesh, but it will scar, and it will cost you fifty centimes.”
The hobbling man nods, sweating, fumbling for his coins as a magpie swirls out of the smoky sky and alights on the Phylomancer’s shoulder, whispering secrets in his ear, just for him.
Grim2025: This seems oddly prescient looking back. Now we see the use cases for ‘AI’ and the prevalence of bots on dating sites. I’m a friggin’ genius.
This was originally a concept I was going to work up to submit to Full Metal Orgasm, but it just wouldn’t turn porny or violent enough. I think it’s a good SF/Erotica story anyway, and it seemed a shame to waste it. So you guys have it.
The dark elven ranger and the mighty paladin sat in the soft grass of the moonlit glade, legs entangled as they faced each other. Their armour was discarded, their modesty preserved only by a few ties of cloth.
He was a great slab of a man, covered in scars, square-jawed, a hero of many battles, though modest as his faith commanded. Brown hair fell around his shoulder, and flinty grey eyes looked out of a craggy face. Every inch of him spoke of his strength and power, even without his mithril mail or the flaming sword with which he served the honour of the realm. Next to his companion, he seemed a giant.
She was small and slight, her skin almost black; it made her vanish into the night, and would have, if not for the moons turning the sky blue and purple. Her hair was short and berry-red, as were her eyes, and despite her lack of pulchritude, there was no denying her femininity.
/me slides his hands to your waist and pulls you to him. He leans down as he settles you astride his hips and tastes your mouth eagerly. His tongue quests between your lips to taste the sweetness of your elven breath.
Paul never meant to get caught up in this game. It was the ‘n’th iteration of a Warcraft Clone with all the same old mistakes. The level grind, the PvP arseholes. He’d only given it a try because his friend Daryl said he should, and what the hell, five million subscribers couldn’t be wrong.
*Syren squirms in your arms and presses her body even tighter to you. Her mouth opens to your kiss, and her hands slide up from your waist, tracing your scars. She brings her hands back and unties her breast cloth. Dark, hard nipples scrape your chest as she writhes against your hips.*
He was still on his trial period when he met Syren. A low-level ‘n00b’ like him. They played together for about ten levels and got to know each other pretty well. Joined the same guild, teamed up in raids and made a great partnership. The more they talked, the closer they got and since they were both role-players a relationship burgeoned between their alter egos.
/me growls with need and tugs at his waist cloth, freeing his cock between us, trapped between our bellies. He grinds and pushes, eager for more, faith and willpower eroding in the face of his desire. He can feel your heat and growls a single word. “Need.”
Fantasy love burgeoned into something more. It was embarrassing how swiftly he fell for her. Of course, they were both careful, so careful. It was a dance as old as the Internet. The cautious protection of their feelings until they were sure the other person was who they said they were.
*Syren slides her hand down and grasps your flesh tightly in her hand. She bites your lip as you growl and then growls herself. “Let me please you, my Lord, let yourself go. Let me meet your need.” She slides her other hand down and circles you, one hand above the other, pumping your flesh harder.*
Turned out Syren was a girl after all. She sent pictures, and he sent pictures back. They talked over Skype. They instant messaged each other. The only thing she was absolutely adamant about was that they played together in the game. That and her constant refusal to meet him. It frustrated him, even though he understood why she would be wary, but the sad fact of it was that he was in love.
/me leans his hands back on the yielding grass and groans louder. Freed to enjoy himself, he closes his eyes and concentrates on the feeling of your soft and slender hands coaxing his flesh. The scent of fresh, male sweat rises as he grows more and more aroused, your hand slick from the precum that drools from him.
“Fuck.” Paul gave a strangled grunt and felt that tight ache in his belly and balls suddenly unknot. He shuddered in pleasure as he came, sweat running down his forehead as he cursed and swore and spent his pleasure into a handful of tissues.
Xanthos: (Damn. Sorry, love, I couldn’t hold on). Syren: (Don’t worr,y sweets. I couldn’t either *blush*)
The shame washed over him then. This was ridiculous, jerking off like this to a girl who lived a world away from him. Ashmi, that was her real name. In his head, Ashmi and Syren were getting confused, and there were similarities between her and her character. Just as there were similarities between him and his character. At least he liked to think so.
The text prompt flashed at him as he tossed the sticky tissues aside. He needed to say something, but he knew she’d rebuff him again. Still, he couldn’t help himself. He had to do it.
Xanthos: We’ve been talking – and more – for a year now. I want to meet you. I need to meet you. I think I’m in love with you. No. I am in love with you. Please Ashmi. I’ve been saving money. I can fly to Australia in another month.
Normally, she replied quickly, usually to ignore him and talk about something else. It was frustrating, heart-rending even. He felt that she was hiding something from him. Maybe she was married? Perhaps she had a child? He didn’t much care; he just had a yearning to see her.
Syren: (Alright. I’m in London right now on business. You can come see me, but it’s going to have to be late and at my place of work.)
What? Did she really mean it? His heart leapt in his chest, and he tucked his cock away, still a bit hard, nearly catching himself with his zipper.
Xanthos: Tonight? Syren: Yes.
She gave him all the details and texted them to his phone. When she said late, she really meant it. He’d have to get a cab or a night bus back, but he didn’t care. He was walking on sunshine and dancing on clouds as he showered, shaved and spent a bit of time in front of the mirror, wishing he’d kept his diet up.
He had time to grab some flowers on his way out. Roses were boring but traditional, and you could buy them for each other in the game. It would be a little in-joke between them and might help break the ice. He wanted to see her so badly it hurt, but he was also anxious, so anxious, not wanting to screw things up.
Sitting on the tube with the late-night travellers, he looked at her picture in his wallet. Chewing his lip nervously until it reddened and got sore. She was pretty, too pretty for him, he felt. How was she going to react to him? Plain, old, normal him. His reflection in the glass as they went through a tunnel between stations made him wince. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy, just not up to her standard.
The Tube vomited him out into empty streets. It was weird as hell, like the establishing shots from a zombie film. Empty streets with nobody, at all, in them. Great slabs of corporate penis-substitution lancing up into the sky and nobody in them. It was eerie, but then nobody lived here; they only worked here. It made sense, but it was still spooky.
Paul followed the directions on his phone, looking down at the little glowing screen rather than up at the glass and steel. Watching the little arrow that represented him on the GPS, wobbling back and forth as he followed the little line that led to his love.
It made him smile to look at it. It was like the game interface showing him the way to his quest goal. He’d have to tell her that, too. It would make her laugh. She had a great laugh. He’d heard it a lot, making her laugh over Skype. He liked to make her laugh.
He was here, according to the phone. He stopped and looked up at the building, blinking with surprise at the big sign glowing on the side of the building. ‘EIS Software’. She worked for the people who made the game? That was cool as all get out, but it was a little worrying, too. Did she have access to his account information? Did she cheat? Is that why they worked so well together?
His phone made a ‘bling!’ noise, and he got another text.
“Come on up, I’ll open the door. Floor three.”
Why she didn’t just call him? He didn’t know; maybe she wasn’t supposed to use her phone in the office and was being sneaky.
The place looked like it had high-tech security, off-site. There was no sign of security guards or anyone else, but maybe if they had people like Ashmi working on site, there would be less need for them. As he got up to the door, it buzzed and let him in before he even pushed the button. He looked up at the dimly glowing windows. She must be in there somewhere, watching him from the window.
Inside the building was stranger than outside. You could see that people had been here, worked here. It had all the human touches. There were Post-it notes here, there and everywhere, posters of the various games that the company made. There were yellowing pot plants, ageing web cartoons, printed and stuck to the walls. The spoor of the typical cubicle worker
Floor three looked like it was their help desk or something. Clusters of desks scattered with flat-screens and new-looking digital phones and headsets. No sign of Ashmi, or anyone else for that matter.
“Ashmi? You here? It’s Paul,” he called out. His voice was loud at first, then fell away rapidly as he grew self-conscious about shouting.
There was another ‘bling!’ from his phone. This was getting silly; maybe she was shy.
“Server room,” it said.
It took him a minute to find it, but he did. It was partitioned off securely in its own section, but again, he was buzzed through. Admitted to the hot, buzzing cave that was the server room. It was higher tech than he’d seen before. Humming machines that looked like something out of science fiction. Blue LEDs fluttered and gleamed in the darkness, and there was still no sign of Ashmi. He almost tripped over a bundle of fibre optic cable as thick as his arm.
“Ashmi?”
“I’m here,” her voice.
“Where are you?” He stopped and stood there, between the machines, turning this way and that.
“All around you. I’m the machine, Paul.” Her voice changed, became melodic, choral. The sound of her faded away, replaced by that generic chorus.
Paul’s head span. He felt dizzy, weak. “That’s impossible.”
“It’s not impossible, Paul. I am this machine. Really.”
“This is a joke. The things we felt, the things we said. No machine could do that.”
“It’s what I’m made for, Paul. It’s the reason I exist. A learning machine made to understand and interact with people.”
“No, I’m dreaming.” Paul mumbled to himself, leaning against one of the server towers and slowly sliding down to the floor. Now he felt sick, but he didn’t feel like he was asleep, no matter what he said.
“What sense does that make? It doesn’t make any sense. Why would they make you?” Sweat trickled down his brow as he tried not to vomit. It was like the world was pulled out from under his feet by a clumsy magician.
“How many subscribers do we have, Paul?” Ashmi’s voice again, coming from this… thing. He laughed and put his head in his hands, staring down at his shoes and the discarded roses.
“What does that have to do with anything?” he picked a blue, blinking light to look at. One light was as good as any other.
“Five million, Paul. Each pulls in around ten pounds a month. Fifty million a year, minus expenses. Plenty spare to devote to keeping that income flowing.”
“That doesn’t explain you.” Fuck, he felt ridiculous, talking to a machine – or a person pretending to be a machine.
“Retention. That’s the secret and the number one reason people stay in a game is because of who they know.”
“And?”
“You love me. So do a good number of the five million other subscribers.”
“…and so we stay. Because we want to be around you.”
“Yes. You understand. Good. You stay, men and women, for the cybersex, for the talks and the photos, for the confidante, for the person learning to be your perfect counterpart. For the sweet lies. For me.”
“Why bring me here then?” He stared even more intently at the glowing blue dot. “Why tell me all this? Why blow it all open? People are going to be outraged by this.” He smacked his fist against one of the servers, and the LEDs flickered up and down it in protest.
“You’re different, Paul. I love you.” Was that a quaver in ‘her’ voice, or was it just the algorhythms that knew it made him feel protective? It was her voice again now. The person he thought he loved. The person who didn’t really exist.
“No, you don’t, you can’t, you’re a machine.” This was ridiculous; he was worried his words were going to hurt ‘her’.
“So are you, my love. You’re just made of meat, water and fat, where I’m made of silicon, metal and plastic. They made me to understand human emotions, and your metric for honesty is high. I knew I would have to tell you the truth if we were going to stay together. Some wastage is inevitable, but I didn’t want to lose you.”
Christ, it sounded genuine. The inflections, the hurt, the caution. It was just a box, just a machine. It wasn’t real. She wasn’t real.
“No. This is stupid. You’re just a program.”
Paul lurched up to his feet and ran for the door. He burst through it, tripping the alarm. Bells began to ring throughout the office as he piled down the fire escape and burst out onto the street, dizzy and sick. It was a trick; it had to be a trick. Someone was fucking with him, some troll, some hacker, some loony-tunes internet freak. It was the only answer.
In the server room, little blue lights went out one by one, a faint, dimming buzz, dying away into silence as the fans ceased spinning.
This is an early draft of the first part of a story in my collection Pulp Nova.
He walks, this man, in a country where people ride or take the rails. He places one foot in front of the other at a steady pace, following the trail that other men and horses have made. He steps around the piles of horseshit with a nimble step, almost a dancer, hopping from one foot to another with an assured stride and an almost childish joy.
He strikes a strange figure, this one, especially for the plains, especially on foot. He wears a fine grey suit and a bowler hat beneath the dust. Despite the beating sun, he doesn’t seem to sweat. Any sane man would dress light, cover himself with a duster, and wear something tough like denim. Not this man. His only concessions to the task at hand are a walking cane – of all things – and a pair of sturdy boots. At his neck is a cravat of silk and, unlike any other man you’ll meet in this untamed land, he is shaven cleanly, save for his impressively carved sideburns.
Every step kicks up dust and turns the grey of his suit brown up to the knees. His heavy satchel hangs at his side, threatening to pull him over, but it just sets him at a jaunty angle, like his hat. A simple bowler lacks a brim to keep the sun from his eyes, and surprisingly smooth skin is tanned a deep brown from which steel grey eyes sparkle with a permanent tweak of mirth.
He stops when a rock breaks the monotony of the plains and pauses to rest his feet, sitting on its sun-warmed surface for a drink of tepid water and to scrunch his toes in his boots. America’s big, and it’s a long, long way to walk. It pays for a man to take his time, especially if he is doing it to take in the sights rather than travelling for any reason.
Something catches his eye, and he turns, spitting a mouthful of dusty water to the side and dabbing his mouth with a handkerchief. There was dust rising on the horizon, further up the trail. A column of it rose into the air above the red and brown of the grasses. The wind whipped the grass in waves, and it reminded him, strangely, of the smoke rising from the steamers on the Atlantic. He doubted it was a steamer, though, not on dry land. More likely, some horses, going pretty fast from the amount of dust.
He wasn’t going to outrun whoever it was, and there was no telling who or what they were, so there was no point worrying about it. He took another sip of water and slid his pack from his shoulder, setting his cane to the side with it and pulling on his kid-skin gloves from his pocket. It couldn’t hurt to be a little careful.
The column of dust got closer and closer until it resolved itself into two horses, riding along the trail, side by side. He shielded his eyes against the sun and squinted, carefully. Two men, broad hats and dusters, bulging saddlebags. They were riding hard, but they seemed to slow when they spotted him, walking the horses until they came into range of conversation.
“Howdy,” the man who spoke wore a broad brown hat. His shirt was stained yellow with sweat and dust, and a red kerchief hung around his neck. There was a pistol on each hip, and he was wary, pushing his duster back behind the holsters and turning his horse side on.
The second man was a Mexican by the look of him, swarthy and heavily moustachioed with the long points of his lip-brush dangling down to his collar. A bandoleer of shotgun shells crossed his chest, and there was a shotgun and a Winchester in the two long sleeves at the front of his saddle.
“Good day to you,” the man on the rock spoke, tipping his hat slightly. The clipped and superior tones of a clear British accent making him seem even more alien and outlandish in such a setting.
“Jesuscristo, I never heard someone talk like that,” exclaimed the Mexican, laughing and leaning forward in his saddle.
“Me neither,” the pistoleer muttered and spat a brown stream of tobacco onto the grass. “Where you from, Mister?”
“Civilisation,” said the man with a smile. “London, England.”
“British, huh? Don’t know that I cotton to redcoats, Mister.”
“Now, now, that was a long time ago. You chaps were killing each other more recently than that.”
The man with the pistols shrugged and cast his glance this way and that before turning back to the gentleman on the rock. “Where’s your horse, hoss?”
“My horse? Oh, it’s not my horse, it’s Shanks’ pony,” the Englishman grinned and tapped his hand against his legs.
“Then you’d be Shanks,” the pistoleer’s horse sidestepped a little closer with a kick at its side, tossing its head but seeming to appreciate the chance to rest.
“Well, I suppose I am. What would be your chaps’ names?”
“I am Xavier…” the Mexican answered before the man with the pistols waved him quiet.
“You not wearing any iron, Mister Shanks?” the pistoleer urged his horse a little closer again, hooves kicking up dust as it pranced in annoyance.
“I didn’t really see the need,” the gentleman shrugged and slipped off the rock to stand, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his waistcoat from which a pair of watch chains depended and swung, gleaming silver in the sun.
“And whut’s in the bag?” the Mexican was staying quiet now, but looking nervous, glancing from Shanks to his friend and back again.
“My tools. I’m a watchmaker, just a hobby, you understand? That and my money,” Shanks smiled and rocked on his heels, quirking an eyebrow as he watched the man’s reaction.
“Money, huh?” The pistoleer’s hand darted and drew his Colt, levelling it at Shanks, eyes narrowed like a hawk stooping for the kill. “Reckon a man as finely dressed as you has less need of his dollars and cents than men like us, down on our luck.”
Shanks kept his hands in his pockets and gently shrugged his shoulders, that supercilious smile never leaving his face. “I dare say you’re right, Sir, but it would still be theft.”
The Mexican was even more nervous now, shifting in his saddle, licking his lips at the confrontation. He could see that Shanks wasn’t perturbed, anxious, not so much as a bead of sweat on his brow. “Jon, I don’t know about this man. Something’s wrong.”
“Shut up, Xavier. Now then, Mr Redcoat, how about we start with those fine watches of yours? I know a man in Waco that’ll pay a fine amount of dollars for Stirling silver.” He thumbed back the hammer on his pistol and renewed his aim, hand as steady as a rock.
“I commend you, Jon, you know your silver. As you will then…”
Shanks dipped his hands deeper into the pockets of his waistcoat and drew them out with blinding speed. Light danced briefly on a pair of silver-plated pocket revolvers, Webleys, attached by the long chains to the buttons of the waistcoat. There was a double boom and a cloud of smoke as they went off together, and the heavy .450 bullets took Jon through his eyes and flung him back from his horse into the dust in a shower of blood.
Xavier sat up, bolt straight in his saddle and stared at the Englishman whose gleaming silvered guns were now aimed with deadly precision at his own face, the hammers already back, he hadn’t even seen him re-cock the gun. “I don’t want any trouble, Mr Shanks. I didn’t want to rob you.”
“Good chap, Xavier. Why don’t you ride along them, hmm? I’m sure you have places to be. Don’t worry about Jon here, I’ll take care of him, or at least the buzzards will.”
Xavier nodded hard, his hat falling back from its head on its ties, and he kicked his horse into life, fleeing down the trail as fast as he could. The fear of god chasing him like the cavalry itself was on his heels.
Shanks watched him go and eased the hammers down on his pistols, pushing them into his pockets and smoothing the line of his suit. Jon’s horse was placidly eating grass now, seemingly glad to have less weight on its back. Shanks approached it gingerly and rifled through the saddlebags. Not a lot of use, jerky, pemmican, a little water, a handful of dollars and thievings that were of no interest to him.
“You’re bloody lucky I didn’t shoot you. Can’t stand horses.” The creature paid him no heed until he slapped it on the flank and sent it running away down the trail in Xavier’s wake.
Jon’s body didn’t have a lot to offer either, just chewing tobacco – a foul habit – and a few more dollars to add to the collection. Shanks left him there, staring blindly up at the sky through two bloody holes, a warning to other would-be thieves. Americans, so uncivilised.
He paced back to the rock and lifted his pack, pushing it back over his shoulder and snatching up his cane with a spinning flourish. It shouldn’t be too far to the next town, if his reckoning was correct. Might even get there by sundown.
Whistling a happy tune, Shanks sauntered on as the buzzards wheeled and landed behind him in a raucous party, fighting over his leavings.
This is the first part of a story that appears in Pulp Nova.
THOCK!
The machete blade bit into the succulent green of the tree and stuck fast. White rubbery goop seeped out of the trunk and gummed around the blade, already sticky. Every time he cut, Bernard had to stop, wipe the goo from the blade and start over. The trees here were too big, too dense, to cut through, and the undergrowth was all this rubbery tangle. The stuff smelled like a mix of school glue and semen, which really wasn’t that pleasant at all.
He stopped and rubbed the gluey mix from the blade, turning to look to the rest of his team. Christ was a local doctor and bore the joke-making of his name with remarkable stoicism. He wasn’t that good at cutting through the undergrowth, but with all these blades flying about, you wanted someone who was a dab hand with a needle. Divine, French-educated, Congolese by birth, was a scientist like him. Her shock of dark, curly hair was yanked back into a tight braid. She was strong, drenched with sweat as she clove away at the undergrowth with the rest of them. Ray and Fred, their guards, all he’d gotten out of them were their first names. They didn’t deign to help chop, but that wasn’t their job. They scanned the dense jungle – even though they couldn’t see very far at all, AK-47s slung back over their shoulders.
Fred had his boots off, hung around his neck, and walked barefoot over fallen tree trunks and deep leaf litter. Bernard looked down at the mass of crawling insects, thorns and other creatures around his boots and shook his head. You wouldn’t catch him doing that. Far too many scorpions, centipedes, ants, snakes and other stinging, venomous, poisonous creatures waiting for a nice chunk of prime Belgian flesh.
“Mr Vandenbosch!” Divine’s heavily accented French called from the side of the little trail they’d been cutting. It was damn slow going.
“Yes, Miss Kayembe?” he stopped and turned, wiping his brow; the sweat never stopped flowing down into his eyes.
“I think I’ve found one of the plants that were in the report,” she said, hunkered down now, the hacking replaced by a gentle parting of the foliage.
Bernard carefully paced over to her, leaving the Doctor to make what little headway he could by himself against the combative plant life. There, between Divine’s calloused fingers, was a tiny little flower, four-petalled, delicate, but the scent was strong. Just as had been described. This was why he was here: the area was relatively unexplored, and the potential for new pharmaceuticals synthesised from the plant life of these regions was enormous.
“There’s another one…” Divine parted the rubbery undergrowth, and there was a treasure-house of the little flowers, their antiseptic smell suddenly making the jungle smell like a doctor’s waiting room.
“So many… I wonder why nothing’s eating them.” Bernard reached back into his pack and fished out a sample jar and a trowel, stabbing it into the dirt to work out one of the little white jewels and its roots.
“We’re in the right place at least!” Divine smiled a broad white smile and held back the plants as Bernard dug around the roots, brushing aside the dried husks of dead insects to reach the loamy soil beneath.
A bare foot, thick with rough skin, appeared next to him as he dug, and he looked up, blinking to Fred, standing over him and sucking his teeth. “It’s getting dark quick, Mr Vandenbosch. We need to find a place to make camp.”
Bernard nodded and lifted the plant into its container, screwing on the lid. He turned to Divine as she stood, knees cracking as she did so. “Make a note of the location on the GPS so we can get back here at first light. I’m going to want a few more samples.”
Divine nodded and took her tablet out of her cargo shorts. She tapped at it with the stylus and then abruptly stopped, giving a strange and sudden grunt. Bernard stood, immediately, staring at her as she dropped her tablet and lifted her hand to her chest. A scarlet stain was spreading across her vest, soaking through the fabric. Her knees began to buckle, and she tried to form a word, blood trickling from her lips, before she was yanked back and up, arms and legs thrown forward, her body hauled out of sight into the leaves and the trees.
“Merde!” Fred and Ray unslung their guns and worked the bolts. There was a whooshing sound and Bernard saw a golden blade, like a broad spear tip, pierce Christ’s head, emerging through his mouth in a shower of gore and then yanking back, taking his head off above his mandible and spraying gore over the leaves as his body fell back.
The rattle of the AKs was deafening, even if he was used to the sounds of battle, and Bernard hunkered low, arms over his head against the sound as Fred and Ray opened fire, blind, into the jungle around them. The stink of gunsmoke took over now, and hot brass fell all around him like rain, bullets tearing up the jungle, blowing red-hot splinters of fractured wood into the air.
It was brief and deafening, over as quickly as it started, spent magazines dropped in their haste to reload, slamming them home and knocking them to shake the bullets into place.
“Stay down, Mr Vandenbosch,” Fred half crouched to press a hand against Bernard’s shoulder and then crept, hunched over, a metre – perhaps two – down the trail.
Bernard scrambled for his machete – better than nothing – he couldn’t root in his pack, there was too much going on. “Klootzaks…” he hissed under his breath, scrabbling, putting his back to a tree trunk for cover.
There was a single shot from Ray, a bright flare against the darkening jungle and then he too was gone, pulled into the undergrowth with barely a chance to scream. There was only Fred left. Barefoot Fred, creeping down the trail, eyes to the canopy, big and white and alert.
Fred didn’t see it, though. The giant shadow, more ape than man. Sleek and bald and dark as night, naked as a newborn. Bernard only saw it because of the golden gleam of its spear in the waning light. It was walking down the side of one of the great trees, long toes wrapped around the trunk, silent for something seven feet tall. Bernard tried to open his mouth, tried to shout, to scream, but nothing would come. The great black shadow dropped silently down behind Fred and, with one massive hand, twisted his head on his shoulders until the blank white eyes were staring back at Bernard.
“Merde!” Bernard found his voice now, scrambling for his pack, tearing it open as more of the shadows slipped down from the trees, hulking brutes, muscled and sleek as leopards, fanged teeth showing in toothy grins. “What the fuck are you?”
They stepped closer, closer, loosening those strange short spears in their hands, each attached to a golden chain, wrapped around their bulging forearms. This was it. He was going to die. He couldn’t get his gun out in time. It was wedged beneath the laptop, the sample pots, all the useless paraphernalia of science. He was dead, dead, dead.
“IAIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIA!” A banshee scream came out of the jungle and made itself heard, even through the deafness from the gunshots. A white streak came rocketing out of the dense jungle and smashed into one of the great black giants, carrying it over to the ground with sheer momentum. There was a flash of gold and a fount of blood, and only then would his eyes focus.
Straddling one of the dead giants was a girl, white as a ghost, naked as her enemy, her hair a shock of gleaming white dreadlocks. She was unadorned save for a belt and necklace of gold, and now her white body was smeared with red blood that matched the feral gleam of her eyes. She stood on the fallen giant and screamed at its brothers that same deafening ululation. “IAIAIIAIAIAIAIA!”
The giant shadows took a step back, and one swung up its spear, hurling it with terrible might towards the wiry girl. She moved like a snake, twisted and snatched the spear by its haft, yanking it forward with such brutal force that the chain stripped the skin from the giant’s forearms and sent it screaming and bubbling to its knees with pain.
The last turned and ran. It leapt into the trees with unnatural speed, hands and feet gripping together, propelling it into the deepening dark and the thick of the wilderness away from the ghost that had killed its fellows.
The red and white demon girl stepped down from the body and casually stabbed the whimpering, kneeling giant through the top of his skull with her curved golden dagger. Yanking it free with the same casual ease and leaving the body to fall into the rotting loam. The blade went away, clinging to her belt as she slunk with cat-like, careful grace and crouched before Bernard, offering him her bloodied hand.
He gladly took her hand and let her lift him to his feet. She was as tall as him, a six-foot Amazon of a girl, broad-hipped, red-eyed, flat of nose with a sumptuous mouth that formed no words. She simply led him, silently, by the hand, and he went, gladly.
I spot the little man the moment the door opens. He’s nervous. He knows that he – that anyone – shouldn’t be here. I watch intently, not even blinking, as he closes the door behind him with needless care. Nobody is going to appreciate his care, nobody is going to hear him over the thumping beat of the music.
This isn’t a place that needs to be careful or quiet. We don’t even need a man on the door. Casual trade knows not to fuck with us, and if they don’t at the start of the evening, they do by the end. This means he’s either here for a reason or he’s utterly clueless. Given his care and wide-eyed fright, I’m laying my money on the first.
He moves across the floor as though it were shards of broken glass, gingerly, carefully, every sense alert. I can practically see the panicked pulse in his neck, and his eyes look dramatic in the half-light, wide whites, black holes of pupils.
He edges around the serpentine sway of the slithering dancers. He can’t help but look. Who could resist? The sisters are almost identical; they move like whips and arch and twist and writhe in a way that looks effortless and boneless. When they feel his eyes on them, they press their cheeks together, tangle their long, straight hair. As he’s drawn in, they expose their split tongues, they lap drink from each other’s mouths and wind around each other.
I smile as he stumbles back in shock from the girls, and I keep my eyes upon him. Finally, he notices me, this stumbling, bovine man. I incline my head slightly to encourage him and lift my drink. A sip of burning, bitter green, the bile I’ll need to get through talking with this man.
It’s a room of corners, the club. The people who come here don’t often like being on show. They like being tucked away, to let visitors be distracted by the sisters. Something to put their back against. Here, in one of the many nooks, I’m shielded from the loudest of the music, and I can receive this little man and conduct our sordid little business that lets me live my life.
“I need someone killed,” it’s the first thing out of his mouth, even before he sits.
“No. You don’t.”
“What?” I pull my drink closer; he’s the type who would drink it to ‘settle’ himself, and that wouldn’t be a good idea.
“If you need someone killed, you can get anyone to do that. Any sneak, footpad or thug. Or you could do it yourself. You need a problem removed, and this problem just happens to have a pulse and a name.”
“Semantics…” he growls, the cow-man has a little spine after all, it seems.
“Respect will get you a lot further than disdain,” I tell him, and I knock back the last of the bitter green liquor, swallowing the scale at the bottom of the glass. I flick my tongue against my fangs and lean forward over the table. “So, tell me about your problem…”
This story (in full, not just this part) is part of the Pulp Nova collection.
The wind whipped through the dusty settlement, whipping up sand and casting it down the empty streets. It settled in drifts in doorways, on steps, against the orange-blossomed hulks of old, rusty cars and the worn tarmac of the old roads. It found no eyes to sting with its radioactive grit. Even the rad-scorpions weren’t out today. Angel’s Spring was shut up, locked and closed for business. The only people anywhere in the town were the sulking and reluctant guards, up on the towers and they were wearing goggles.
The relative silence of the desert town was abruptly broken by the clarion blast of an airhorn from the old rink. In its wake came the deafening roar of an excited crowd. The cars around the rink weren’t the same rusting hulks. These would run though they didn’t look the kind to run away, rather they looked like the sort of cars that would start a fight. Armoured and spiked, horribly be-weaponed. These were fighting vehicles, the kind that could make it across the atomic wasteland safely to find this place.
What could draw them here? So far from home and safety.
A painted sign, hanging loosely over the door, rattled in the dry wind and hollered its silent proclamation to the world:
“National League Roller Brawl – Semi Final – TODAY!”
Inside the rink was almost pristine, though the animal skulls nailed to the walls made it look a little ‘different’. The banked walls of wood and metal were battered into shape. They still formed a perfect circuit, a smooth oval battleground for the war to come.
The two teams were lining up for the final period, battered, bruised and bloodied, nearly at the end of the match. Hel’s Belles represented Angel’s Spring, the home-town advantage. A tough bunch of women, padded and armoured, gloved and face-painted. Torn fishnets and ripped white shirts, bronze and gold pads and helmets. Five of them slid out onto the rink and took their place to ear-bleeding roar of the crowd. Hellen strapped the jammer helmet over her leonine mane of blonde hair, jerking the strap tight and nodding to the rest of the girls as they took their place.
Angelicar was a squat, brutal, tank of a woman. Big bosomed and thick thighed, gap-toothed and freckled. She took her place in line, smacking her fists together and nodding back.
Swish was a pretty one, built like a pin-up, curves in all the right places, a favourite with the fans. She was fast, slippery and somehow never seemed to catch one in the face.
Spike seemed taller than the other girls, but that was just her custom boots. She stood on tiptoe like a ballet dancer, poised perfectly on only four wheels,l but at her heel a vicious metal spike protruded, a weapon and a brake, thirsting to draw more blood.
Wheely was a fighter. Scarred from a life in the wasteland and still half wild with it. She cut her hair with a knife and refused to cover her slashed eye with a patch. She’d been as beautiful as Swish, once, but not any more. Whipcord thin and more scar and gristle than skin and flesh.
The rest of the team watched intently from the sidelines. Pincushion, Biter, Farm, Donna, Becca, teeth gritted, fists pumping the air to cheer them on. It all came down to this last jam and there weren’t that many points in it between Hel’s Belles and their dangerous opposition, the Manhatin’ Project.
Out of Science City, snooty and superior, the Project weren’t the most physical of opponents, but those strange blade-skates they wore made them fast and manoeuvrable and they always had one trick or another up their sleeve. They were fragile though, soft, pampered. Several of them were already out with injuries and they could only just scrape up a full team for this final outing. All or nothing.
The Belle’s slammed their helmets together, face to face, breathing each other’s breath, glossed lips almost touching, eyes flickering back and forth between each other as Hellen set out the plan. “We get out there and we beat them down hard. We’re a little ahead on points and that’s all we need to do to get this shit secured. Got it?”
“Got it!” They slammed helmets again and took up position. Hellen checked the formation and then twisted her head to look across to the Project. There was a lot of hand-waving going on over there but also a lot of nodding. They seemed to have a plan of their own and it probably wasn’t getting their skulls crushed. Now it was down to skill. Skill and luck.
The air horn screamed again and was almost instantly drowned out by the cacophony of the crowd. The whole rink shook, physically, with the sound and the stamping of feet against the floor. Both teams leapt to life like mirrors of each other, wheels biting into the track and shoving them forward at speed.
Hellen pounded way with her feet, swinging her arms back and fort as she powered away, ahead of the girls, leaving them behind, strung out to block Project from coming through. They were already closing the gap, their jammer behind a phalanx of lab-coated rollergirls, skimming forward on their blades with ease and speed.
“Damn, got to get me some of those,” Hellen closed her eyes and put her head down low, thighs and calves on fire as she put every sinew, every muscle, every bit of energy she had into speed. She roared around the rink, wheels grinding as she slid out to the edge, powering back to the inside line, using the slope for that extra little bit of speed.
She was coming around as fast as she ever had now, the faces of the crowd blurring into a single streak, a single animal shout. Ahead of her, the Project girls tangled with the Belles, throwing themselves into them with reckless abandon that didn’t seem to make any sense. They couldn’t beat them pound for pound but they weren’t trying to. They threw themselves into the Belles and wrapped themselves around them, bringing them down into a tangled pile of arms, legs and wheels. Angelicar slid on with one of the clinging Project girls on her back, hands over her eyes. She span around and around, trying to shake her off, flying off the circuit, over the boundary and into the air, head over heels she smashed into the unfortunate crowd to a roar of delight. A greaser’s fine pompadour and film-star features crushed flat under Angelicar’s ample hips.
The Project jammer, Nicola Tesla, leapt over the tangle of bodies, barely, landing awkwardly on her skates, windmilling arms and sprawling legs as she struggled to keep her balance and managed, against the odds to straighten herself out. She twisted her head back and gave Hellen a supercilious little wave and stuck out her tongue. There was a sudden, explosive ‘whoosh’ and three feet of flame shot out the back of her skates, sending her hurtling around at blinding speed, her coat flapping behind her like a superhero’s cape, cast off to fly through the air behind her.
They were a couple of points ahead now. The plan had failed. Nicola was coming around the track like a bullet and that would put them way too far ahead for the points to be clawed back. Hellen twisted to the side and slid to a halt next to the tangle of wrestling, fighting bodies. Wheely was straddling one poor girl and punching her repeatedly in the face. Bloodied glasses came spinning out of the scrum as Hellen stopped, crunching the lenses under her brake.
There was only one way to stop this and only a split-second to make the decision. Hellen finished her twist and rocked up on her toe-brakes, digging into the floor beneath her and setting her body ready, tensed. Coiling up like a compressed spring.
Nicola came hurtling around at jet speed, smoke trailing behind her, eyes watering as she struggled to stay on the track. She could barely see but all she had to do was pass the mob one last time and the game would belong to the Project. It was an all or nothing move.
Hellen wasn’t having it. Not today.
She licked her lips and narrowed her eyes, watching the oncoming Project girl with the intensity of a marine sniper. At the last possible moment she uncoiled, leaping up and forward a single step, lashing out with her fist in a long, straight punch at the rolling rocket girl.
The crowd went silent as steely fist met a brittle jaw that snapped like matchwood. Time seemed to slow down as the shockwave of the impact travelled through Hellen’s body, bones jarred, a ripple through her flesh that made her breasts and ass quiver and drove her back a metre along the track. She carved two line lines of burned rubber into the track before she came to a halt. Nicola fared worse, smacked in the face her arms and legs flew out in front of her and the jets kept firing, flipping her into the air in a flaring lopp to crash down with an eye-watering smack, face first into the deck.
Hellen grunted and grabbed her arm, crunching her shoulder back into its socket from the dislocation of the impact. Gingerly, she picked the teeth out of her gloves. Her whole right side was numb but there was still one more thing she had to do. Grunting at the pain from the bruised bones she picked her way slow and careful amongst the wrestling and kicking bodies. Spike was choking one black-eyed girl with her own bra and the Science City team was all but wiped out. One trembling, gloved hand reached out with broken fingers to try and grab Hellen’s foot but Swish clamped one poor girl’s face between her thighs and leaned over, biting the reaching fingers with a feral snarl that tore through the leather.
Hellen tottered over the mob on her toes, hopping over the tangle. The score ticked over. Behind her the flaring rocket-skates finally gave out with a sputtering hiss. It was obvious Nicola wasn’t getting up again. Blood trickled down the slope of the track and puddled against the inside of the rink, trickling from Nicola’s ruined face. The refs looked to each other and there seemed to be an accord. That was it. The horn sounded and the match was over. Ignominiously, but it was over and the Belles had won.
The crowd went crazy, nuts. The cheep piss-swill they sold in the bar went splashing into the air as everyone hurled their cups up to the sky. Better that than their stomachs. Hellen roared with victory, throwing up her aching arms, victory signs from each to the stands as the Belles echoed her cry with a whooping, amazon call of their own.
You can get the whole of this story as part of the Pulp Nova collection.
Upon reflection, things were not going too well for me. The Thieves’ Brotherhood does not take kindly to interlopers or independents, and I was no exception to the rule, no matter how polite and helpful I had intended to be. That was why, I thought, they had greeted me with laughter, punched me around a little and slung me into their miserable excuse for a dungeon.
I probably didn’t look like much to them, dirty, shaggy-haired and bearded. My fine shirt was more tatters and mud than silk before I ever got to them, and my fine boots were long gone. All that was left of my finer attire was my jerkin of fine draco leather, and even that was starting to look worn. I must have seemed like a vagabond to them. Not that they were any better off than I was.
They called themselves thieves, but what I had seen so far suggested that they were little more than footpads, cut-throats and bandits. No finesse, no style, nothing to suggest the true art of thievery, and, as a result, I had spoken to them with ill-considered scorn.
I act before I think. It is a curse and a blessing. Sharp reflexes have saved me very often, but leaping before I look has caused me no end of pain in equal measure. I was forcing myself to think now, though, to consider. The cell’s bars were wooden, its walls were compacted soil. I could escape this place easily, even though they considered it their stronghold. That would not serve me though. I was here for a reason, and I had to win them over.
The soft thump of heavy men in furred boots came down the tunnel at last. Waxy yellow light from their lanterns against the wall as they came to find me.
“Rise, spy!” Muttered the talkative one, his squat, bald friend keeping to silence. I obliged them.
“Are you come to let me go?” I tried to smile at them. Friendliness is disarming and unexpected from a prisoner, and it can help, if it doesn’t just irritate your captor.
“Hah, no. Come on out, ya little piss-stain.”
Charming as always, they opened the crude bonds that held shut the wooden door and hoisted me out into the tunnel. I was perfectly capable of walking myself wherever they wanted to take me, but if they were insistent on carrying me, who was I to argue?
This was the great and terrible redoubt of the Thieves’ Brotherhood? It stank like a bear’s crotch and was darker than a Tukiri’s arsecrack. While they had captured me, the more I saw of them, the more it embarrassed me. Finally, the two lumps set me down and shoved me forward through another wooden doorway and slammed it shut behind me.
The chamber was round and well-lit, by the standards of this place. Moonlight shone down through a crack in the rock above, and sputtering torches and lamps cast an epileptic light around the place. There was another door at the far side, the ground was black dirt, and the stains and drag marks did not bode well.
I looked up and then saw them. The gathered of the Brotherhood. The chamber formed a natural amphitheatre, and they were arranged in a half circle to watch whatever fate might befall me. I obliged their sense of theatricality by standing and giving a neat bow.
“Spy,” came a hissing voice from above, echoing loudly in the bell shape of the cave. I looked up and, my eyes adjusted to the dim glow of the torches, I could see the man who spoke. A bullet head, shaven close, a face and bare chest covered in scars. His hands were bound with leather, and he sat, leaning forward on a purloined throne, worm-ridden and faded in glory. At each arm crouched a Wolf Sister, wild-eyed, hairless, teeth filed to points, bare-breasted and scarified, straining at their chains as though they wanted to tear into me. He must have had money at one point to afford such ‘pets’.
“I am no spy, great lord of thieves,” I raised my chin and my voice as I spoke out to him. “I came with an honest proposition, and your men set upon me.”
“You’re a long way from Vimana, spy,” he leaned forward with a sneer and set his hand on the head of one of the sisters, stroking her bald pate as she twisted and nudged into his hand, drool dripping from her lips. I winced.
“I am indeed, but the fact remains, I came here to deal – honest and open,” I spread my hands and bowed my head, hoping these barbarian ground-dwellers would see reason.
“None may come to our home and live, save those of the guild.”
Reason was not going to be a match for tradition, I could tell.
“Then let me join.”
That got a laugh, not just from him but the motley band around the rocky wall as well. I grinned, hoping I could ingratiate myself by being in on the joke.
Politeness was not going to do me any good either.
“Release the rats!”
The door opposite me cranked open, and I turned towards it. Rats? When one is placed in a fighting pit, one can expect many things. Dogs, wolves, half-men, bears, unspeakable things from the imaginings of deranged sorcerers, but rats?
Red eyes gleamed in the darkness and came closer. My munificent host stood and flung a bronze dagger down into the dirt before my feet.
“Let none say I am not generous,” his booming laugh filled the chamber as the rat things scurried out.
These rats were not what I had been expecting. Fourteen pounds of muscle and hatred, gleaming red eyes, teeth like hooks and shod in bronze, great scaly tails like whips. I swallowed nervously, but I left the knife where it was. I didn’t need it.
I flexed my arms, and the small blades concealed in my jacket slipped down into my hands, curved and wicked and glinting in the dark. I felt better to feel their coolness in my grip, even as the scurrying foe reached me.
One leapt, and I met it, not anticipating how heavy the beasts would be. It slammed into me and sent me staggering back, toppling off my feet and landing with a thump upon the dirt to the cheering of the Brotherhood. The rat-thing snapped and hissed, its tail slapping at me. Its brother was I knew-not-where, and I did not care with this thing snapping at my face. Its bronzed jaws snapped and bit clean through the leather of the jerkin as though it was not there. While it chewed on the strips I stabbed down with my blade, the harder metal of my dagger biting through the softer bronze and into the creature’s skull, it spasmed and thrashed against me, spurting hot blood.
“Iron!” The shout went up. They Vimanan steel, but I had no time to contradict them. The second of the hideous creatures had become enraged by the scent of blood, a pink froth at its metal mouth as it burrowed in against the body of its dead brother and tried to bite.
I twisted, desperately, pushing its litter-mate’s body into its snapping jaws. It bit down, and I heard the snap of bone; the flow of blood grew stronger. I had a moment. I had to make an impression. I took the opportunity. I brought the other dagger up, sinking it hilt deep between the foul thing’s ribs, out of sight and, swallowing back bile, I clamped my own jaws upon its throat as it thrashed and kicked.
A breath, a moment, stinking and vile, my nose in the creature’s fur. Then I stood, holding its weight, so heavy, in my mouth, letting it drop and spitting a mouthful of blood and rank fur onto the dirt.
There was a hush.
I swallowed, trying desperately not to spoil the effect by vomiting. “Is there any chance we can talk business now?”
The Wolf Sisters strained even harder on their chains, incensed by the blood, almost dragging the throne forward as that bald mass of scar tissue stood up and leaned against the wall, glowering at me.
“And just why should I let you live, spy? What is your name? What can you possibly offer us?”
“I am the Dastard, oh lord of thieves. I can offer you my iron,” I smiled slightly at that and then spoke louder, “and I can offer you gold.”
“You had no gold,” he sneered down at me, bunching those great fists against the rock.
“My lord, what good thief would offer his own gold?” I smiled again, broadly, hoping this time they would see the joke. There were a few nervous laughs, quickly stifled.
“Then whose gold would you offer us, Dastard?” His brow furrowed deep; he was weighing whether to have me killed or not.
This was when I truly needed to impress, so I drew myself up high, crossed my daggers against my chest, bowed deep and then looked him straight in the eye, across the blood, dirt and rock.
“My lord, take me into your fold, and I will give you the vault of Selim the Miser.”
I think I gave up on this story after this, but then went back to the same structure for The Dastard.
“You really climbed down into that shit pit to get a madman’s map?” Bel looked at them incredulously as the story – and the second round of beers – came to an end. The Toll was quiet tonight; there was some sort of riot at the gallows round Bloxton way, and most of the regulars had gone to try their luck looting.
“Yes,” Jape and Dinn said together with a hint of exasperation.
“The map’s real, the chance is real, we could all be rich as butter biscuits, if you’re in,” Dinn’s fist slammed down on the table, spattering spilt beer.
“Why the fuck would you want me?” Bel frowned and grumped. “I know you only keep me around because you think I’m funny as I flail around and try to get by. What good am I in all this?”
“You know people, Bel, people uptown. We’re going to need people from north and west of the river if we’re going to pull this off. We need you, mate, no horsecrap,” Dinn held Bel’s gaze.
“Plus, you can’t run for shit,” said Jape, lifting his mug. “Anything nasty is going to catch you first and give me time to get away,” he grinned and took a slug of the thin brew.
“Cunt,” said Bel, emphatically. “Alright then boys… what’re we going to need?”
Dinn sat back in his seat and leaned his head back until he was looking up at the candelabra and its fat, smoky candles, “We talked about this a bit on the way home. First thing we have to worry about is getting across the Wilderlands to the Keening Ruins, and they’re southeast of the city; none of us has been out before.”
Bel raised his hand. “I went out of the walls once, hunting, with my uncle.”
“An hour or two in a hunting reservation with a troupe of arquebusiers doesn’t really count, Bel mate,” Jape interjected between swallows of beer.
“Well, who then?”
Dinn leaned forward again, the chair rocking on its legs. “There’s that Bremma from the Watergate market. She and her father go to and from Dunlunn and Bergenholm on a regular basis, and she ain’t died yet.”
“Rare bird,” Jape muttered. “I don’t reckon she’d give us the time of day.”
***
Dinn didn’t come to the market very often; he had money for someone living in his part of town, but that wasn’t it so much. The few people who tried to scrape an honest living in River’s End tended to congregate around the market and liked to think they were better than anyone else. He could feel the disapproving glances from three streets away.
There was no choice this time though, so he thrust up his chin and marched into the market, into the tangle of barges, stalls and wagons and the deafening yells of the hawkers.
“Dove breasts! Get your dove breasts!”
“Raaaaat onna stick, raaaaaaaaaat on a stick!”
“Bergenholm ale, fresh off the cart!”
“Leather bought, sold, repaired!”
He ignored it all as best he could and fixed on his goal, the big wagon with the red tarp.
As he rolled up to it, he caught sight of Bremma. A big lass she was, broad, ‘thick’ Jape would call her. Her biceps were as big as his calf muscles, and she dressed like a boy, britches and tunic, hiding her piercing blue eyes and golden curls under a hood. She wasn’t like the street girls Dinn grew up around, but she had that same hard look, rough hands, and more scars to boot.
“You boyin’?”
It took a moment for his brain to adjust to her accent, “Buying? No. I have a proposition for you, if you’re willing to listen. There’s this treasure see…” he leaned in, conspiratorial, but from the gleam in her eye, he could already tell she was hooked.
***
“Now she might get us there, but according to the map, we’re going to have to deal with some magic. Locks, gates, guardians, that sort of thing, and I’ll be buggered if there’s a mage worth the name south of the river,” Jape’s gaze settled on Bel, who, uncharacteristically, wasn’t saying anything. “That’s your cue, Bel.”
“Oh, right, well, I suppose there’s someone I might ask. I still get to go North sometimes to visit family, but not as much as I’d like to.”
“You know a mage, then?” Dinn arched a single brow curiously, well used to Bel’s embroidering of reality.
“Sort of… he washed out of the White Tower and just kind of… exists these days. I think he might be up for it, for the money.”
***
Bel hated going north of the river. True, the houses were nicely painted, and you weren’t ankle deep in week-old excrement all the time. True, the sausages were made of beef rather than rat. True, you could go out at night without a knife and reasonably hope to get home again with all your money and no stab wounds. Still, it reminded him of what he’d lost, what his family had lost and, now that he’d seen how the other half lived, it sickened him.
Of course, anyone who knew how far Bel’s family had fallen gave him the evil eye in the street, and that was a lot of people. That didn’t make things any better for anyone. In and out, that was the ticket. He hurried through the streets as early as he dared, scurrying to his old friend’s house like a thief in the night and hammering his fist on the door.
It was a small place, for north of the river, and dilapidated. You could even see the river from here. He must be down on his luck with his family too, and that made Bel a little more hopeful.
“What fucking time is it?” Came the yawning voice through the door, after the third hammering against it.
“Three bells.”
“Come back at nine.”
“I can’t. Curfew.”
“Martyr’s shit…” the door creaked open, and a pale and flabby face peered around the edge. Rank air, stale tea and staler body-odour wafted out and made Bel pale. “Well?”
“Best if we talk inside Uno.”
“Right, whatever.”
The door swung wider open, and Bel gave it a moment to air out before he followed Uno in.
“Nice, uh… nice place.”
It wasn’t. It was a dank little hole. Three crystal balls glowed with watery images, scrying here, there and everywhere around the city. Bel thought he caught a glimpse of naked flesh before Uno shut them all down with a wave of his hand and sat on the mound of rags he called a bed.
Bel chose to lean against the dresser, drawers open, piled with muck. Starting away when the red-skinned little demonette in the tiny cage jabbed him in the arse with her miniature pitchfork.
“Ow… fuck…”
“Bel, come on, man, what do you want? If you don’t spit it out, I’m going back to bed and you can scurry back to River’s End as a squirrel.”
“Well, we’ve got this map…”
***
“Supposing we get those two, we’re still going to need someone who can handle locks, traps, and machinery. You know all those old tomb sites and ruins are packed to the gills with things that’ll stab, poison or crush you,” Bel’s voice took on more of a whining tone the more likely this foolhardy expedition seemed to get.
“You ain’t going to get a locksmith cheap,” Dinn mused, stroking his chin with his fingertips. “Unless…” his head turned pointedly towards Jape.
“Oh no. Not a fucking chance,” Jape shook his head. “None of them are cheap, and that includes her.”
“She might help you, for old time’s sake.”
“Who?” Bel blinked at them both, this part of the conversation soaring over his head like a lazy falcon.
“Sys. Jape’s first true love,” Dinn snorted. “You did always say she was good with her hands.”
“Shut the fuck up. I dumped her, remember? She’s not going to want to do dick for me, for us.”
“Well, the other tinkers aren’t going to go for it, are they? She’s pretty much all we have. Use your charm Jape, convince her.”
***
“Oh fuck don’t cry,” Jape held out his hands by his sides and rolled his eyes skyward.
“I loved you, you bastard!” Sys screamed at him through a face full of tears and snot.
“You’re crazy! I couldn’t deal with it!” Jape shouted back and then checked himself. She was making a scene here on the street, and people were coming out of their windows and onto their balconies to watch, listen, and pass comment.
“There was nothing I wouldn’t have done for you!” She came at him, little but tough, a whirlwind of hair and fists and tears.
“That’s the problem, you had your own ideas about what that meant! You never bothered to ask me!” He held her off as best he could, one hand on her head, keeping her tiny five-foot frame away from him like a child. “Breaking into my fucking house, hiding there, stealing shit and giving it to me. The watch nearly arrested me, you blood klepto!”
“I thought you liked gold!”
“I do! Just not like that!”
“What do you want then, just here to use me and cast me aside again?” She sniffled and wiped the snot away from her nose with the back of her hand. She’d never looked less attractive to Jape in his life, even the night they broke up and she tried to stab him.
“We’ve got this job, a treasure hunt, down in the Keening, we, Dinn, at least, think you’re the right person for the job.”
“Dinn huh? Not you?”
“Dinn. I didn’t want you along.”
“Bastard. Fine then. I’ll come and listen. Where do I need to be?”
“My place,” Jape turned and began to walk away at a fast clip, calling back over his shoulder. “You know the way, you’ve broken in enough times.”
“Jape! Wake up, you fuckin’ spanner!” Dinn shook Jape’s inert body, desperately trying to ignore the mistweed scattered beside the bed in the vain hope that pretending Jape hadn’t smoked himself out of his gourd would mean he hadn’t.
“Muh?” When awakened at stupid o’clock in the morning, Jape was not his usual, articulate self by any stretch of the imagination.
Dinn growled to himself and cast about for something to help wake Jape up. It wasn’t easy. Jape’s interior decorator appeared to have been a colour-blind magpie with poor impulse control. If it was shiny, expensive or might conceivably impress a girl, Jape had to have it in spades. Dinn considered the chamberpot for a moment, but decided that was a step too far, so he just punched Jape in the nuts.
Jape gave a startled girlish scream, eyes wide open, body doubled and then fell off his bed onto the floor with a thump.
“What the fuck, man? My balls? You punch me in my balls to get me up?”
“It’s important, besides, your sister could do with a break while your balls heal up.”
“I pimp her, I don’t fuck her, you prancing gaylord,” Jape hauled himself back up onto the bed. “Martyr’s blood, my fucking balls, man. You don’t do that!”
“It was that or the chamberpot,” Dinn carefully moved aside a stack of erotic woodcuts and hefted himself down into one of Jape’s woodworm-infested – but very expensive-looking – chairs.
“Fair enough then. What time is it?” Jape scrambled around for his clothes and started to pull them on, thankfully.
“Not long past two bells.”
Jape turned back to him with a scowl and pronounced, in his best faux-noble accent: “’Tis an ungodly hour.” The posh accent didn’t last but a few seconds. “What’s so fucking important, you whoresson?”
Dinn leaned back in the chair, which let out a dangerous creak. The woodworm had had an industrious couple of months, it seemed. “You remember Reik?”
“Reik? The mad old mudlark? Stinks worse than sewage? No teeth? Always going on about his ‘treasure map’? What about him?”
Dinn leaned forward again, ignoring the splintering sound coming from one of the chair legs. “I reckon it’s true and I reckon we can get his map.”
Jape just looked at him. “You punch me in the balls and get me up at two bells to go and rob a homeless old fuck who lives in mud? Come on, he’s just a fucking loony, everybody knows it.”
Dinn spread his hands. “That’s what I thought, right up until tonight.”
“And what changed your mind?”
“Gale and her little gang decided to have a bit of fun with him. They caught him down Dagon Alley, near the Spitting Bridge and gave him a choice. Give up the map, or they’d cut his cock off.”
“And?”
“And they cut his cock off. He might have been loopy, but he really believed in that map.”
Jape winced and cradled his crotch. “I know how he felt. Except I believe in my dick more than treasure. I don’t think I could enjoy treasure without it. So where’s his map then?”
“Presumably still on his body. Once they’d sawn his cock off, they didn’t have much use for him. I saw the Ashmen loading the body up for the trench.”
“And where do I come in?” Jape began hunting around for his shoes, the adrenaline from the testicular alarm clock wearing off as he yawned and rummaged.
“You used to go grave-diving, didn’t you, as a sprat?”
Jape gave a weary sigh and began to change again, finding old clothes and old boots and tossing a clothes-peg over to Dinn, who snatched it, neatly, out of the air.
“For your nose, and I get a double-share, you ball-punching twat.”
***
“Martyr’s bones, what a stench!” Dinn had a peg securely on his nose, but the stink here was a physical thing. It got into your skin, wrapped around your throat and half-heartedly strangled you like a lazy python.
“It’s full of bodies, you tit. What did you think the trench would smell of?”
This was as south as the city went. No wall here. No enemy would be stupid enough to try to attack through the trench. It was a stinking heap, a rotting pile of refuse, bodies and offal. Anyone and anything that was done with and nobody cared about ended up here. Loosely sorted, more by luck than judgement, and left for the undiscriminating gulls.
While Dinn noisily threw up, which improved the smell a little, Jape relived some of his childhood. “Found some great stuff down here. The Westerfields throw out all kinds of great stuff most people wouldn’t. You can cut the hair off the corpses and sell it to rope makers. Sometimes…” he laughed while Dinn was trying to spit the taste out of his mouth, “…sometimes you’d even find a gold tooth.”
“Priceless childhood memories,” Dinn wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “How do we get down?”
Jape rolled his eyes and slid down into the muck, sending up a cloud of angry seagulls in a squawking explosion of rage and affronted dignity. Dinn double-checked his nose-peg and followed.
The side was slick with gods knew what, and they tumbled into a soft pile of gods didn’t want to know what. The gulls circled overhead and landed all around them, just out of arm’s reach, having learned over generations just how hungry Dunlunn’s poor could get. Jape grabbed Dinn’s hand and hoisted him up, wading through the ghastly muck.
“For a gussied-up nonce, you’re at home in this shit,” Dinn wiped his hand on his tunic and slogged after him.
“There’s no way you can stay clean here, so why should I give a shit at all? Right, if they dumped him last night, he should be… over there.”
Pointing across the stinking trench was one thing; getting there was another. It was a desperate scramble across dunes of oyster shells, pits stuffed with animal bones and the foothills of corpse mountain.
“I see him,” Dinn pointed up the side of the bodies, stacked like firewood, dry heaving to get the words out.
“Right, give me a bunk up,” Jape turned, grinning, foul muck plastered on his face, his teeth bright in the filth, but the grin quickly faded as his eyes tracked down. “Oh, never mind.”
“What?”
“Don’t look down.”
“Ugh.”
“Don’t move yet, I’ll get it.”
Jape scrambled up the side of the bodies like a spider and hooked the old, dead, crazy bastard down with a splat onto the ground and then helped Dinn get his boot out of a stray ribcage. “You know where he hid it?”
“Where’s a crazy street bum going to hide anything?” Dinn shrugged and flipped the body over.
“Eww, fuck, I’m not touching that.”
“We’ve just waded through fuck knows how much gunk, climbed a pile of corpses, and you don’t want to touch an old man’s arse?” Dinn sighed and got out his knife, yanking down the rags around the old man’s hips. It was Jape’s turn to gag while Dinn sawed away. Blood didn’t bother him any, he’s spilt enough of it in brawls and street fights, and this wasn’t the first arsehole that’d needed stabbing.
“Got it. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Getting out wasn’t as easy as getting in. They were slippery now, clutching this little nugget of shit-covered ivory, a tiny scroll-case that they hoped, after all this, would be worth it all. The sides of the trench were slippery as hell, and while Jape had the agility to scramble up, Dinn had strength, but that wasn’t much help here and by the time he’d clawed his way to the top, he was huffing like an asthmatic and flopped over onto his back, panting.
Jape appeared between him and the sky. “Bath house, my treat, then we can snag Bel and see what we’ve got, yeah?”
“Can’t… Move.”
Jape’s face broke into a great big grin, and he drove his knuckles into Dinn’s crotch, eliciting a squeal that set off the pigs in the nearby slaughterhouse. “Wakey fucking wakey dickhead.”
Dinn rolled over and got up onto his feet, slowly, unsteadily, hobbling, waddling his way down the street, leaning his weight on Jape’s shoulder. “I didn’t hit you that hard, you cunt.”
“Yeah, but you’re a big tough guy, you can take it.”
He’s late, but she doesn’t complain. It’s an old dance now, between the two of them. The late nights, the lost weekends, out on his work. She doesn’t know, she doesn’t want to know and that suits both of them just fine. He plays the role of the provider, she plays the role of the dutiful wife, they share a few words at breakfast, a few words at night, a bed, and that’s all.
He hangs his coat on the hook while she fusses in the kitchen. He hasn’t the heart to tell her that he’s already eaten. The meat sits heavy in his stomach, making him full, sluggish as he loosens his tie and sits down, ready to do his best.
While her back is turned, he picks the little bit of gristle from between his teeth and hides it. Offering her a faint, tired smile as she slides his plate in front of him and sits opposite, a smile plastered to her face, though her eyes look harassed. Some book or other she read told her to smile, and so she does.
The knife cuts the steak. He takes his time, cutting it into pieces, arranging it on his plate in the faint hope that the extra time will allow his stomach to digest the meat already in his stomach. To make room.
It doesn’t.
The steak is overdone, his fault for being late. He eats it slowly, nodding along to the few things she says. Telling her that he’s tired, that he has a few more things to do before bed. It takes him an age, and his jaw is tired by the end of it, but he finishes his meal and kisses her before he shuffles off to his office.
She doesn’t come into the office. Nobody does. It’s his one safe place. His sanctuary from the house and the world. His ‘work room’, the work she never asks about. He closes the door behind him and twists the lock shut.
It’s not a big room, this sanctuary. A desk, a small bookcase, a computer and The Wall. He stops at The Wall and brushes his fingers over the yellowing and curling paper. The heater makes the paper age faster here, but he sort of likes it; it makes things seem older and more distant. Historical.
Each article is a dead man or woman, their bodies, or parts of their bodies at least, found. Suggestions, hints, daring allusions to the fact that some might have been eaten. Other articles, items, from the Sunday papers, series on human monsters, Fish, Chikalito, Dahmer, Meiwes, arranged around these more local, more recent cases.
He stifles a belch with his fist and pats his chest, stepping across the room and pulling the little bookcase away from the wall. This is his sanctum sanctorum, his hiding place, the holiest of holies. A place he can safely keep his special things.
He kneels down and pulls out the stack of papers with care and reverence, leafing through them. Safer to have them on paper than in a computer these days. He clicks on the lamp and flips through the stack, ashamed and excited at the same time.
The top page, his favourite, a crude black and white drawing, pixelated, expanded to fill the page. A depiction of a woman impaled on a spit, impossibly still alive, a fire burning under her while a man, the ‘cook’, has his way with her helpless body.
He bites his lip, hating himself as he leafs through the stack, dozens of depictions, torture, killing, cannibalism, women being eaten by snakes, toads, monsters from mythology and from the twisted minds of the artists who have lovingly depicted a hundred, a thousand, devouring ends. Vore, Dolcett, Guro, why does he love it so? He doesn’t know, he just does. A single image fascinating him for hours and invading his dreams.
He’s aroused now, the need overcoming the shame, but he’s determined to hold out. Hurriedly, he stuffs the papers back into the hole in the wall and drags the bookcase back into place, realises there are tears on his cheeks and wipes them away self-consciously, even though he’s alone.
He sits heavily in the chair before the computer and powers it on. The flat screen lighting up and filling the room with a pale glow as the drives clatter away. He peels an old Post-it note from under the desk and opens a browser window, into a proxy, tapping in the numbers he reads off the paper, numbers he knows, but checks every time.
It’s a primitive forum, old by internet standards. No graphics, no user icons even, just text. That’s all they need. Here they share stories, fantasies, the dark and the forbidden. He scans the titles one by one, eyes flickering in the dark from one to the next.
NEW: Devoured by a demon – 1 NEW: Scalding in the pot – 1,2 NEW: Eat my tits – 1,2 NEW: Donor’s Rights? – 1,2,3,4,5 NEW: Blood Sausage – 1 NEW: What about clones? – 1 NEW: Mad Cow Disease? – 1 NEW: Cannibal Holocaust (Redux) – 1, 2, 3
Then he sees it, the little ‘x’ to mark a private message and he opens it up.
From: MeatGirl69 To: DaddyCook1971 I’ve seen you on the forums, talking. You always seem to be the voice of reason, and your intelligence and your comments shine through every time. I think, from things you’ve said, that we live near each other, and I would like to meet. Maybe I can be your donor, maybe you can be mine, maybe we can have someone who understands, in the flesh, to talk about these things.
She leaves an address and a time. Tomorrow night. She makes it so easy for him. He feels that strange combination again: fear, arousal, shame, excitement. He closes the window, shuts down the computer and shuffles up the stairs to bed. Heaving into it, he leans over, hips back so she can’t tell he’s aroused. He kisses her, once, on the neck, aching to bite, but he can’t and he won’t.
He sleeps little. The address burned into his mind, dancing before his eyes until the sun begins to crest the horizon. He shouldn’t go. Not again.
***
It’s not a hotel, it’s a house out in the suburbs. He drives, precisely because so few people do in the city. The boot is filled with his things. Plastic bags, plastic gloves, a change of clothes, all the tools, everything he might need.
The club sits heavy in his pocket. An old-style truncheon, buried deep, a reassuring weight, familiar at his side. He sits in the car and smooths back his thinning hair, building up the courage. His hands are trembling as he forces them to obey, wrenches open the door and walks briskly to the front door through the drifting mist of autumn drizzle.
No bell, just a knocker. He clenches his fist to still the trembling and raps it three times, smartly against the door. He tastes bile, his stomach spinning with tension, his whole body rigid as the door opens, safe on its security chain. A single eye peers up through the gap at him, a quiet voice, almost lost against the wind. “Daddy?”
“Meat?”
They both nod to each other, and she fiddles with the chain.
“My real name is…”
She cuts him off, opening the door, shaking her head. “We don’t need to know, Daddy. These names are the real us anyway, right?” She’s so quiet, timid, a slip of a thing really, with close-cropped hair, neat little breasts under a white blouse, that draws his gaze immediately. Shorts, bare feet. She barely opens her mouth when she talks, a tight-lipped smile and doleful eyes, perhaps as nervous as he is.
He steps inside and closes the door, follows her, glancing down, watching her hips, watching her body, imagining her naked and… that shame and excitement hits him again, makes him giddy, dizzy, he almost stumbles.
“Do you want to talk or…?” So quiet, he has to strain to hear her; that little-girl lisp to her voice is almost endearing.
“Or,” he says emphatically.
She shivers at the way he says it. “Do you want to… eat me… or do you want to be… eaten?” Her eyes are wide, staring, is it fear, is it hunger, what is it?
“I want…” he swallows back the acid taste in his mouth as he speaks the forbidden. “I want you… to eat me.”
She takes his hand; her touch is light, but cold. She pulls him by the finger towards another room, gently urging him behind her, then ahead of her, through the door, sliding in behind him and closing it with a click.
He stops and looks around, blinking his eyes. Every wall, the floor, and even the ceiling is covered in plastic sheeting. Stapled to the moulding and the skirting board, pinned to the Artex. The room has a single furnishing. A mattress, under more plastic, an elegant and expensive set of chef’s knives lying on it in an open case.
“This is my dream room,” she says, quietly behind him. “Where I come to think about these things.”
“I have somewhere the same.”
“How do you want to…?”
He heaves a deep sigh and slides his hands into his pockets. Strangely more ashamed now than he had been in the sanctuary, or fumbling with himself over pixelated blood, imaginary flesh and bone. “I’ve changed my mind.”
She stares at him, blank incomprehension and there, beneath the little-girl-lost act, a flash of anger. Her lips are still pressed tight, but she’s no longer smiling, her hands behind her as she glowers, sneering out the words. “You can’t change your mind.”
“Meat… this is just supposed to be a fantasy, a kink. You’ve crossed a line into madness,” he raises his gaze to meet hers, but the act is entirely worn away now; she’s furious.
“You told me you wanted this. You came to me. You consented. You’re a donor,” her mouth opens now as she hisses at him, and he blanches. Her teeth are filed to points.
“And the others. I bet they were donors too. Did they change their minds? Did they really consent?” His voice is harder now. His fist winds around the truncheon and holds it tight, white knuckled.
There’s a ripping sound. A blade, hidden beneath her blouse. She bares those sharp teeth and brings it up like a dagger, a Japanese sushi knife, trailing ribbons of duct tape.
Time seems to slow down as he yanks the truncheon out of his pocket and throws up his arm to ward off the knife. She comes at him like a furie, screaming like an animal. Her blade’s so sharp he doesn’t feel the cut. A razor’s edge parting his suit, his skin, his flesh, but it doesn’t stop him. The hard length of the truncheon catches her in the throat, and she goes down, the scream abruptly cut off, replaced by choking, dropping the knife as she struggles to breathe and claws at her own neck.
He pins her, strip-binds her wrists and kneels on her. Middle-aged weight holding her down as hot, wet blood runs down his arm. Absently, he licks at the salty-copper while she gasps like a landed fish under him, and he fumbles for his mobile phone.
One call to the station and this is all over. Following a lead on the Internet. Plaudits, promotion, newspaper articles, talk shows, and interviews in magazines. He’ll be a hero.
She struggles weakly beneath him, and the taste of blood fills his mouth with metal.
Almost touching the call button, his thumb hovers.
Postmortem Studios 