Raising Fire Read online

  All his indecision happened in a second. Even as he realised the risk he was taking, he was closing a claw around Jia, lifting her from the ground. He could feel her struggles, her kicking against his plated flesh having little effect. The mist churned like a hurricane as he leapt for the unpolluted heights. For freedom.

  Bullets snickered and pinged off his spine. He banked right, intending to soar around the craft, but its rotor blades came angling towards him, cutting off his escape route. Changing course, he found himself surrounded, the other two helicopters dropping through the cloud cover, their rotors forming a whirling wall, ready to turn him into a smoothie. Up close and personal, the Apaches held all the menace of wasps. Their thermal-imaging sensors, bulky protuberances on the nose of the craft, would show him up like an escaped prisoner under a spotlight; he couldn’t hope to lose them in the fog. The Chapter wasn’t messing around: the bristling array of rocket launchers and missiles invited him to a world of pain. The Apaches hovered above him, noses tipped to direct him to the ground. Through the windshield of the chopper ahead, Ben could see the gunner and the pilot, and neither of them was waving.

  The sky is my backyard, buddy. You’re just a tourist.

  The Apache in front of him fired—an unseen signal passing between the three craft—but there came no stutter of bullets, catching Ben off guard. Before he could manoeuvre, twist away, a metal web was spreading through the air above him. Trap sprung, the Apache ascended and withdrew, whickering in retreat. Ben reeled, trying to throw off the net as it settled around him, the safari-grade mesh clunking on the ridges of his spine, wrapping around his tail and tangling in his wings, his pinions folding under its weight. He thrust upward, the wake of his struggle spinning the other two choppers in a blast of air, the pilots punching at the controls. It was no good. He could fight the True Names all day long, but he couldn’t fight gravity. He roared and thrashed, the net making flight impossible. Surrendering, he tumbled towards the earth. Clutching Jia close to his chest, shielding her struggling form, seven tons of constricted dragon crashed headlong into Hampstead Heath.

  Boom.

  Minutes passed. Trees shuddered and creaked, relinquishing the last of their leaves. The tremors subsided, an unearthly silence settling over the Heath. Apart from the thud thud of rotors overhead, the chilly peace returned to the parkland. Birds twittered, fluttering from branch to branch. The ponds smoothed to stillness. The London skyline marched on undisturbed, the Gherkin and Shard deaf to the uproar.

  The mist cleared. One of the choppers, the pilot leaning forward in the cockpit and scanning the ground, managed to veer out of the way a second before Ben came hurtling past, a red streak spearing into the sky. He clutched Jia in one claw, the net bleeding in melted runnels off his wings, a scatter of slag in the winter air.

  The red streak shot south-east, flying from the park and fleeting over the surrounding rooftops, TV aerials quivering in its wake, then flashing over the traffic on Finchley Road. Driver and pedestrian alike looked up, alarmed by the turbulence, the blast overturning shop signs and rubbish bins, snatching hats from upturned heads. Snapping his wings in close to his body, Ben swept over a bridge and shot into the mouth of a railway tunnel on the West Hampstead interchange.

  Settling dust obscured his vanishment.

  TWELVE

  The devil is in his hell and all is wrong with the world.

  And this was hell, of that the tramp had little doubt. The day passed by in a stutter of startling scenes, each one rearing like a wooden grotesque in a mystery play, the devil come crawling out of clouds of flour in the village square to tempt a mummer saint. Good old George. But today, the devil was the champion, making the tramp dance through all the maddening sights. Later, at the bidding of some priest or other, the peasants would gather to throw the devil on the fire.

  Dance, dance ye to the music of death.

  The sun rose over Hampstead Heath. Had there been a fire somewhere? the tramp wondered. Smoke spiralled from the hill at his back, churning from the guts of a shattered building. The Court, he thought, wondering where he had plucked the name from. Could he hear bells? Or had that been earlier? Perhaps the bells were only ringing in his head. Ding-a-ling-ling. He clutched a narrow object in his hand, a short metal bar, bowlike and silver. Tuning keys dotted the scrollwork. He hated the thing, but he would never let it go. Mostly he was afraid that if he did, the bells would fall still and, in the silence, so would he. He trudged down the hill, wanting to get away from the noise, but having no success. Screams greeted his mud-streaked appearance as he slipped his way down the sodden bank and onto the path, his arms swinging out before him. Froth bubbled on his lips. His eyes rolled up in their sockets, bloodshot orbs scouring the fractured pieces of the past.

  He saw the old man standing by the bench before the old man saw him. The little brown dog yipped on its leash as the tramp broke the old man’s neck and shuffled into his plundered raincoat, the fabric ripping at the shoulder seams. Somewhere in his delirium, the tramp understood that his nakedness wouldn’t serve him here. He was a creature of instinct, and instinct would guide him, even in his confusion. In a glimpse of terrible clarity, he could see himself as others saw him: a dark-skinned brute stumbling under the trees, leaves sticking out of his silver-streaked hair and his gaze searching, searching the tangled briar of his past … Then he was holding down the laughter again, holding down the sobs.

  He stuffed the fragment of the harp under his coat, the bells muffled, but holding back the silence. Soothed, he flung the old man’s body into the bushes and hurried on into the dawn. He had swallowed both the man’s eyeballs, but hungry as he was, he was loath to touch the real meat. He didn’t want to besmirch his new clothes. Didn’t want people looking at him.

  He needn’t have worried. People swerved to avoid him. Even a madman could tell that his torn clothes had rendered him invisible. A man spat at him and told him to go get a job. Most of the people said nothing, looking up at the buildings or down at the pavement where his bare feet sloshed through the puddles. Mauntgraul (Is that my name? Or the name of a ghost?) barely noticed them.

  Hands to his head, trying to shut out the ceaseless roar of the metal carriages shooting past, he staggered drunkenly down the road. Look, there a giant painting of a goddess! She stretched across the face of one of the countless towers, pouting down in rouge tyranny. Dummies stood in windows, blank-faced, watching. In other windows lay glittering stacks of trinkets, the purpose of each beyond his ken. Dials turned. Numbers flashed. Bells (bells!) went off. Down a corridor of stares, the tramp staggered along the road, bumping into the lords and ladies in their strange garb. Stumbling into the pageant, the mystery play. Into the fire.

  In the pageants of old, there had always been a devil, wooden and crimson-painted. Horned. Fanged. Breathing fire. But he couldn’t remember the right name for him (A word. Another word beginning with D) and the parade went waltzing by, shouting and laughing into black devices held up to mouth or ear, fingers tapping at the bright rectangular surfaces. To look into the past was safer. Easier. Nothing in the past could hurt him now. Not priests. Not knights. Fuck them and their Lore. He could smell the past all around him, a lingering trace retained in a shopfront or a stray cobble under his feet. In weathered stone that had seen fire and flood and thirsted for more. The bones of the city. London Town, gorged on the ages and grown fat. Oh, he would know this place in his sleep! This grave of serpents. This ancient smouldering feast!

  Yes … The dragon city. The pageants had featured a dragon, a beast to symbolise the devil. Dragons. And he remembered a flight of the beasts, a sky that had swarmed with snout, wing and tail, the mottled flanks of gold, green, black and blue.

  And red.

  Why did his nails grow long at this last thought, his half-grown talons spearing his palms? Blood spattered the pavement, melting into the rain. No one stopped. No one looked. He had a feeling that no one would talk to him if his head burst into flame. Or if a tail
with a barbed sting on the end of it came coiling out of his spine. What a ridiculous thought. In a shop window, a row of screens captured his every movement, mirroring his face. Why did he weep so? What was this voice in his head? Better to let the bells drown it out, a silver sea washing away the shore of his reveries. Mauntgraul, the White Dog, wailed and stumbled away, pushing his way through the crowds.

  Oi, mate, watch where you’re going!

  Fucking twat!

  Should I call the police?

  He hurried along the street, stumbling further down the dragon’s throat.

  The pageant lurched on into night. Singing. Dancing. Somewhere, he had lost hours. He sat, shivering in his raincoat, on the steps of an elaborate fountain. The crowds surged all around him, but the people never came too close. Above him, a little stone god balanced on the fountain’s topmost pinnacle, poised in the act of shooting an arrow. But the god’s arrow was missing and his wings were stone, never to take flight.

  Mauntgraul sympathised without knowing why. Like a charmed snake, he sat mesmerised, watching the myriad shapes swoop and swirl across the grand building opposite, the reflections blinking in the puddles, impossible visions of light.

  In his mind, the bells tinkled, ceaseless.

  He didn’t notice the boy until the boy spoke. One moment, he wasn’t there. The next, a shadow separated itself from the crowds and the traffic and coughed politely behind his fist, announcing his otherwise composed presence.

  “Bonsoir, monsieur. A night like this, it warms the blood, no? Well, someone’s blood. A vampyr must restore himself, when business calls.” He shivered, but Mauntgraul reckoned the gesture was merely for show, a remembered thrill. “Ah, the wind is so bracing. Keeping one sharp.”

  The tramp on the steps studied the boy. The boy couldn’t have looked more like his opposite, in his suit jacket and slacks, the umbrella he held to keep the rain off his lustrous curls. The tramp, for all his forgetting, had lived long enough to understand a city—even one as changed as this—and the youth at the bottom of the steps, all of nineteen years old, if that, was as powdered and preened as any prospecting catamite. His complexion, paler than a winter sky, bloomed with roses at his cheeks and lips, speaking of rude health. His eyes gleamed with malachite in the depths. And secrets, the tramp thought. Too many secrets. The puddle that the youth was standing in didn’t appear to catch his reflection. If it wasn’t for his smell, a rich, antique perfume masking something sweeter and fouler, the tramp would have dismissed him with a growl, told him to go ply his trade elsewhere.

  Instead, he said, “I am lost. And yet you found me.”

  The boy shrugged, but the tramp could tell that he was flattered.

  “A simple thing. Webs and whispers. Sans importance.”

  “Whispers …”

  “Oui. Whispers.”

  The boy grinned, and here was a curious thing. A kindred spirit, the tramp thought, and so moved, he reluctantly conceded his predicament, Remnant to Remnant.

  “I think I have been asleep,” he said. “Asleep for a very long time.”

  “You are still half asleep, I think,” the boy said. “The fun half, anyway. Blame that little trinket that jingles in your pocket. Magic is not what it was. Things grow sour. Spells rot. And I’m afraid that the lullaby has driven you mad.”

  “Trinket?” Now it was the tramp’s turn to show his teeth. “It is mine.”

  “On se calme. I don’t want it. And we have all been asleep after a fashion. Nonetheless, the Lore is broken. You’re not the only one who took the opportunity to dine.” The boy dabbed at the corner of his mouth, as though wiping away a spot of wine. “We really should get out of this rain. Do you know how long it takes to do one’s hair without the aid of a mirror?”

  The tramp had stirred at the mention of food.

  “I woke up with a mind to a feast, but …” He studied his lacerated palms, his fingers opening and closing. “The times, it seems, have stolen it from me.”

  “Oh, there are others who will serve,” the boy assured him. Taking the tramp’s melancholy as an invitation, he climbed the steps and sat down next to him, unmindful of the blood and the shit, his raw, staring eyes. Up close, the tramp should have felt the heat of the boy’s body on this cold March night, but he only shivered again, shrinking inside his raincoat. “If you so choose.”

  “Others?”

  “Whispers, mon ami. The disciples of saints. How the faithful like to hide themselves, skulking in the cloisters of the world. But spiders pay no mind to holy ground and webs weave everywhere. You might say I have heard the whispers of whispers, their desire and design. Indeed, the Chapter has pulled off quite the coup d’état. And the devil take the hindmost, as they say.”

  “Devil?”

  “The trinket in your pocket is but one of three pieces. Long parted and each one a key. Remember. Remember. This dissonance could swell into a symphony. Wouldn’t you like to be the one calling the tune?”

  He chuckled at his little joke. Confused, the tramp scratched his balls.

  “Whispers …”

  “The Curia Occultus. Ring any bells?”

  The tramp winced at the mention of bells. He wanted to get away from this sweet-smelling youth with the pretty white smile, but glimpses of the past were glittering again and a distant heat rumbled in his belly, the temptation of vengeance tilting his head towards the boy.

  “And where would one find such whispers?”

  “On a mountaintop. Closer to God.” The boy had a trace of heat now, the tramp noticed, but his fervour came entirely from his eyes. “And I ask only a small favour in return.”

  THIRTEEN

  There are places under London that not even the rats know.

  No one had built London’s tunnels, secret or otherwise, to accommodate the wingspan of dragons, so as the dark closed a fist around Ben, an undulation of scales rippled from his snout to the tip of his tail, a beast becoming human. He rolled, feeling every lump of gravel under his backside, into the gloom.

  Jia fell from his withering clutches, rudely ejected into the filth. He heard her sit up a few feet away from him, dusting grit off her suit, and he grinned through his bruises, happy to have shaken off pursuit. The choppers wouldn’t dare try to navigate the London Underground system, surely. Pedestrians had a hard enough time as it was.

  Jia crunched over to him and slapped the grin off his face.

  “Never do that again!”

  It wasn’t a hard slap, as slaps went. Her eyes were harder. He wanted to protest—he’d returned the favour and saved her life, hadn’t he?—but part of him could understand why she might not appreciate having a giant red claw close around her, snatching her up off the ground.

  All things considered, there was only one safe place in London he could think of, and he’d decided to keep Jia close at hand. The True Names hadn’t baulked at the idea of harming her, he’d noted, the bullets sprayed just as freely in her direction. That bothered him. It said something. Something bad. And he reckoned she had something to tell him. He couldn’t make her say it. But he could try.

  Jia, a supposed paragon of virtue, was still a Remnant. With few friends left and the envoy’s absence, circumstance had thrown them together. Did he trust her? Hell, no. But cards on the table, that didn’t mean much. Who do I trust? He had to focus on the facts at hand. She was a Chinese unicorn. No. A sin-you. According to her, an appointed champion of truth and justice. Sure, she was about as much fun as a wet weekend in Margate, but he reckoned he could trust her to be herself, if nothing else. That would have to do.

  With this in mind, he shouted up the tunnel after her, asking her where she thought she was going. She didn’t look back. For the inscrutable Miss Jing, it seemed the argument was over.

  Ben caught up. Gently, he tugged her elbow. Clearly her vision was up to scratch, judging by the way she managed to navigate the uneven ground. When she shrugged him off, he merely gave a tut. He headed off down a side tunnel, an
arched brick corridor on his right, leaving her to it.

  Jia hesitated a moment, then she levelled her shoulders and followed him.

  Paris wasn’t the only city with catacombs. For half an hour, Ben led the way downward through a series of cisterns, channels and sewers, the brickwork changing from Victorian to Roman, the darkness deepening. Jia stumbled along behind him, refusing his offered arm on two occasions, but keeping close to his back. It was obvious that she would prefer to take the lead—anything but rely on him—but this was his territory, his turf. There were places under London, Ben could’ve told her, that no living soul had ever laid eyes on. From Whitechapel to White City, an unseen metropolis stretched out, a labyrinth of tunnels and vaults, from the vast chambers of the railway lines to abandoned air raid shelters and a host of disused tube stations with subsided and cobwebbed platforms.

  Under this layer of modernity lay the skeletons of the past, the wine cellars of kings and queens. The channels of forgotten rivers. The echoing temples of Celtic priests. Lower still and one reached the stratum of bones, the sediment of a thousand wars, some recorded, some not. And under the bones, down winding stairways carved from earth, over bridges that spanned yawning chasms, one would come at last to the barrows.

  The lost graves of the Fay.

  Ben led Jia through the cavern, marvelling at the stalagmites and stalactites, some of which joined, the towering spindles making a crystal cage of the space, a menagerie for the alien dead. The rock down here was alabaster smooth, touched by something unnatural, warping it into the rarest of stone. Ben hadn’t walked in this place for three hundred years, past the slumped and crumbling shapes of the tombs, these monuments to other-worldly lords and ladies, raised back in a time when some said the Fay had been gods.