Tom Pollock - The City's son

‘We have to get you out of here,’ Beth began to mumble. ‘We have to get you to a hospital. Can you stand? I can carry you — shit, look at you girl, you’re a mess.’

‘And I always took such good care of my appearance.’ Pen coughed up a laugh. ‘I tell you what, B, we’ll roll you in barbed wire and hit you with a railing and then see if you win any beauty pageants.’ She tried to smile with her one remaining lip. Then she swallowed and the half-smile fell away. ‘Listen to me, B: you have to stop Reach.’

Her eyes were wide, but whether with wonder or horror, Beth couldn’t tell. ‘The Wire Mistress — its barbs were in my head; I knew its thoughts. We worshipped Reach, like a God.’

We worshipped. We, not it. Her voice was thick with violation. ‘Reach is tearing the city up, building himself in its skin,’ she croaked. ‘He’s killing it. He doesn’t know it, but he’s killing everything.’

‘I know,’ said Beth. ‘I don’t care — it doesn’t matter. None of it does. I have to get you better.’

Again, Pen peeled that one-lipped smile off her teeth. ‘That’s sweet, but it’s bullshit.’

Beth hissed in exasperation. ‘Fine, be like that. I’ll sodding carry you.’ As tenderly as she could she put her arms under Pen’s torn skin and made to lift her.

‘Ow! Ow! B!’ she whispered, ‘if I was going to bleed to death I would have done it days ago. Pakistani, remember? I’m related to about four hundred doctors. I know what I’m talking about. Will you just go?’

Beth shook her head stubbornly. She braced herself to lift her friend again.

‘Do you even know the way out of here?’ Pen demanded. ‘You’re in a maze, you know.’

Beth froze as Pen pointed weakly to one of the exits from the chamber. ‘You’re lucky. You’re close. Reach is eighty yards that way. Straight line. You can’t miss it.’

‘And the way out?’ Beth asked. But she knew what was coming.

Bloody teeth showed through the gaps in Pen’s lips when she closed them. She shook her head. It was the only way she could make Beth leave her here. Not telling. ‘Sorry.’

Beth stood slowly and gathered up her spear. Pain flared out through her skin, but no bones were broken. She could still run. She could still fight. Frustration bubbled up in her and she punched the wall, hard. Her fist smashed half an inch into the wall, making dust trickle down from above.

Pen looked alarmed. ‘I get that you’re pissed off, B; you don’t have to bring the roof down on me.’

As she fell silent Beth became aware again of the noise that had always been there: the savage roar of Reach’s machines, only eighty yards away.

‘That picture you did of me,’ Pen said at last, like she had to offer something, ‘on the wall by my house. It was good. I liked it.’

Beth smiled awkwardly. ‘I was hoping you might come up with a poem for it.’

Pen’s lip twisted. ‘All right.

‘There once was a girl from Hackney, who told me she always would back me.

She went off the rails, with me on her tail, and this thing made of barbed wire attacked me.’

She looked at Beth. ‘It’s only a limerick, but I’m a bit rusty, you understand.’

Beth’s ears burnt in shame. She didn’t say anything.

‘Sorry,’ Pen said after a moment, ‘I’m just-’

‘-I know.’ Beth squared her shoulders and turned towards the exit Pen had pointed to. ‘Thanks, Pen.’

Pen’s breathing was shallow, like someone controlling panic. ‘You know I love you, B, but this isn’t for you,’ she whispered. ‘This is for me. I want to want this.’

Beth didn’t understand what she meant. She crouched by Victor’s body and closed his eyes. She felt a dangerous pinprick of sorrow for the old Russian, but she smothered it before it could grow.

Later, she promised herself. Later. She raised the spear to Pen and made for the passage.

The light was stronger there, and the pneumatic drills made the ground shake: the machines belonged to Reach, master of the Wire Mistress. The monsters had stolen her best friend, killed Victor and destroyed so much of her city. She felt fury in her chest, as hot and black and viscous as boiling tar. Her feet were about to break into a run when Pen’s voice rang up the tunnel.

‘B!’ She sounded fragile. ‘I’m scared.’

Beth stopped. ‘Pen?’ she called.

A long moment passed. When Pen answered, she sounded firmer, more in control. ‘No, I’m okay. Sorry, go on. I’m fine. It’s just taking me a while to get a grip on myself again- Go!’

Beth gritted her teeth, turned around, and for the first time in their friendship, she did what she was told.

Pen lay back on the shale, relishing the simple act of shutting her eyes. She took deep, painful breaths, ignoring her cracked ribs, expanding her diaphragm, because she could.

She regretted calling out, but even with the Mistress gone, her desires and fears kept flipping and reversing. She wondered if she’d ever again be able to want something for long enough to pursue it. She shifted, and winced. Every square inch of the fabric she wore was slippery with blood.

If I was going to bleed to death I would have done it days ago, she’d said. I know what I’m talking about.

It was the first proper lie she’d ever told Beth. Not bad for a friendship lasting three years, she told herself. Panic was swarming over her like tiny spiders, but there was a rush too. A sense of pure freedom.

Her eyes snapped open as a new sound sneaked into her ears under the all-too-familiar clatter of Reach’s machines: hurrying footsteps.

Pen’s heart lodged somewhere near her carotid artery. She opened her eyes and craned her neck to see.

A rough rectangle of light, the door to Reach’s court, stood open before Beth. Something intensely and inconveniently bright was shining directly through her exit, hitting her retinas like a battering ram.

Blood-and-stonepiss-in-the-river, she swore silently. She was already deafened by the noise from beyond the doorway; even the panicked thud of her heartbeat had dissolved under the din. Apparently, she was going to have to go out there blind as well.

She hesitated. Outside, the King of Cranes, London’s nemesis, was waiting: the beast in the city’s skin.

He’s killing everything.

She crouched there, wiped the oily sweat from her palm and gripped the spear. Voices flitted in and out of her head.

You might need this. Drive it into the Crane King’s throat.

Come on, B Do more than just run.

Reach will tear you asunder.

Come on, B An ending is all you’ll find…

Do more than just She climbed to her feet and opened her ears to the full clamour of the building site.

— run.

She pelted out into the day.

At first she saw nothing but eye-scouring light as she ran headlong, clutching the spear, not daring to stop. His voice flew in from all around her, echoing in the churn and tear of steel and concrete: I am Reach I am Reach I will be I will be. And there were other sounds, too: the pounding of iron paws on rubble, the slaver and snap of Scaffwolves, horribly close.

Gradually her eyes began to cope: the light was the sun, bouncing off a pair of half-built skyscrapers. Reach had surrounded himself with mirrors. She shielded her eyes and looked from side to side. She sprang from one chunk of rubble to the next, sure-footed as a cat on the treacherous ground.

Cranes soared overhead, but they were just cranes, not fingers. They weren’t linked to hand or arm or body. Where was he? What was he? Her fingers were painfully tight on the spear.

Drive it into the Crane King’s throat.

I would, she thought desperately, if I could find his throat!