China Mieville - Kraken

“It’s her,” he said. He shook his head and shut his eyes. “But why would she be with him? Where’s Wati?”

“Here, Billy.” Wati sounded exhausted. He was in a little fisherman figure made by one of the children of the churchgoers, lying on a windowsill. A man made of toilet rolls and cotton wool. He looked at Billy out of penny eyes.

“Wati, did you hear that? Can you get there?” Billy said. He tried to speak gently, but he was urgent. “We need to see if this is real. If it’s her. She might not have any idea what she’s getting into, and that name means it either is her or it’s someone who got it from her.”

“What’s he doing?” Dane said. “Why’s Paul-or the Tattoo-drawing attention to himself? He must know everyone from Griz to Goss and Subby are after him.”

“He wants something. She even said so. We get there he might have a knife to her throat,” Billy said. “He’s not going to negotiate toothless. Maybe he’s holding her hostage. Maybe he’s holding her hostage and she doesn’t even know.” Billy and Dane looked at each other.

“Paul didn’t look in shape to do much when he left,” Saira said.

“Wati, can you get to her?” Billy said.

“There may not even be any bodies there for me,” Wati said.

“There’s a doll in her car. And she wears a crucifix,” Billy said. There was a silence.

“Wati,” Dane said. “Listen to yourself. You sound rough.”

“I’ll see,” Wati said. He was gone. Limping from figure to figure across London.

FITCH SAID THEY SHOULD HIDE. ONE LONDONMANCER, GIDDY AT his own heresy, suggested they leave the city.

“Let’s just drive!” he said. “Up! To Scotland or whatever!” But there was no certainty that Fitch, for example, so much a function of the city, could even live for very long beyond its limits. Billy imagined himself on the motorways, becoming expert at the ungainly swing of the trailer, pulling the preserved squid through the damp English countryside and on into Scottish hills.

“Griz’d find us in ten seconds.” He would. There was something about the surrounds of slate, the angles of the turns that kept them hidden, even if it was a trap too. The city bent just enough that the Londonmancers stayed out of sight. An organic reflex.

If they left they would be nude. A giant squid in a lorry, heading north between hedgerows. Fuck’s sake, everything sensitive within ten miles would start to bleed.

“We’re going to do it this way,” Billy said. “Dane’s way.” He did not look at him. “Because he isn’t going to change his mind, and this way we can stop guessing whether it’s the last night, because we’ll know it is. And Dane’s going to do it, whatever the rest of us do.”

Saira was of his party-the warmakers. He could tell she was afraid, but still, that was her vote. Crisis forced the Londonmancers into democracy. Billy smiled at Saira, and she swallowed and smiled back.

WRAPPERS SURROUNDING THEM, MARGE AND PAUL SHIFTED IN their seats. They had been sat for very many hours in the car. Marge recharged the iPod and tried to remain stoic about the increasingly grating warble of her protector.

“What are you listening to?” Paul asked her, finally. It had taken him long enough. She ignored his question. They ate trash calories, ducking below window-level on the few occasions they thought they heard someone approaching. Paul ground his back against the seat as if an insect bit him.

“What’s your story?” Marge said. Maybe calmed down he might be more comprehensible.

“I got tangled up with all this stuff years ago.” That was all he would say.

More hours. Right then, that carpark was where Marge had lived forever. Emotions and surprise had a hard time getting in to that carpark. So she could merely sit.

It was not silent. All buildings whisper. This one did it with drips, with the scuff of rubbish crawling in breezes, with the exhalations of concrete. Long into dead time, there was another breath at last, a tiny breath. From the kewpie figure dangling above Marge’s dash. She turned her iPod down.

“Paul,” the little figure said, in a man’s tiny voice. “And you must be Marge.”

“Wati,” said Paul. “Marge,” Paul said, “this is Wati.” He spoke carefully. It had been a long time since he had said anything. Marge said nothing. She looked at the doll and waited. “Where’s everyone else?” Paul said.

“What are you offering, Paul?” the doll said. “What’s going on? Will you come back?”

“Wait,” Marge said. To the figurine. “Are you… Are you with Billy? Where is he?”

“Billy can’t come,” it said. “There’s a spot of bother going on.” What a sad laugh it gave. “He says hi, by the way. He’s very worried about you. Didn’t expect to hear from you. He’s sort of concerned about… your man here. I don’t think you know everything about him that might be helpful. Paul, what is it you want to say to us?”

“Oh, you know, you know, Wati, now you’re here I don’t even know what to say,” Paul said. “I have so much to say, I don’t even-I’ve been having plans, you see.” He spoke fast, a wordspill. Marge stared at him. He was quite suddenly like this. “What do I want? Wati, I want you to split, I think, and bring, bring Billy. I want you to…” He paused. “You know what happened, Wati. What the Londonmancers had planned? They were ready to kill me. You know that? You think that’s okay?”

“We don’t know for sure they planned anything, Paul. But where do we go now? What do you want?”

“They were…”

“Where’s the little bits of Grisamentum?” Wati said. “It was in a bottle, weren’t it?” Paul made a face and waved his hand: It’s nowhere, it’s nothing. “Where do we go now?”

“I don’t go anywhere, Wati, but you should,” Paul said, urgently. “You should go. Get Billy and Dane and the Londonmancers.”

“I’m here to hear you out,” Wati said.

It was only now, hearing this strange discussion over the muttering awful music in her ears, that Marge’s chest felt suddenly tight as she had the thought, the wonder, if what she heard was a hostage negotiation, about her.

“You go, Wati,” Paul said. “Go on now.”

“No don’t,” said a new voice. “Not now, really don’t.” It was a voice Marge knew. Two people were approaching, in and out of the light pools by the cars. A man and a boy. “Now’s we’re all together it’s time for us to really fix those threads once and for all. The party’s tonight, after all, and everybody’s coming.”

GOSS AND SUBBY.

Oh my dear sweet Lord.

The leerer and his empty-faced boy. They came out of blackness. Trench coats spattered with gore and dirt, swaggering in shadow. Every few breaths, cigaretteless Goss breathed out smoke.

Marge made a mewling noise. She reached for them, but her car keys were gone. She whimpered. She could not breathe. She turned up the iPod violently, so her ears were full of a stupid crooning rendition of TLC’s “No Scrubs” so loud it hurt her. One earpiece fell out. She clawed around the floor for the keys.

“Run,” Wati whispered from the tiny cutesy figure. “I’ll get help.” And he was gone-Marge felt him go.

But though Wati had spoken quietly, she heard Goss say as he walked stiff and twitchy out of nowhere into that place, “Will you though, my best fellow? Will you really?”

She saw Goss hold up what looked like a handle of stone. A figure in clay, degraded by millennia. “Hello, boss-carrier,” he said to Paul. “You’ve got something of mine on your person. I suppose what we should say is you’ve got something of which I’m its. Looking for help, are you? Waiting on the bluff for the cavalry? Round you go, Subby, Son.”