I was watching the world through tears.
Mandy and the Beetle had emerged, two o'clock in the afternoon, from a damp bed, and were now taking late breakfast at the table. Mandy's cheeks were glowing like an ad. You know the kind of thing - SEX IS GOOD FOR YOU - DO IT EVERY DAY. THIS HAS BEEN A GOVERNMENT INFORMATION MESSAGE. Beetle was his usual self; hair gelled slick-back with Vaz, his Peter England shirt hot-pressed to the limit. He was shaved to the edge, and the tangy aroma of Showbiz arose from his skin like the smell of celebrities at a first night party. Both of them looked fruity from the afterglow of sex, and I just couldn't take it, couldn't take the fresh love. The Beetle was cleaning his gun at the table, smearing Vaz into the chambers. I guess he was doing it to impress the new girl. It worked.
"Is that real, Bee?" she asked. "Neat!"
Oh like, wow.
The Beetle's gun was a joke really. He'd bought it off some old acquaintance, a real bargain, he'd said, and that - what with the city turning the way it was - you could never be too careful. Of course he'd never fired it, never had need to, and after two weeks of carrying it everywhere, he'd slipped it into some hideaway, and that was that. Now it was out again, getting the full Vaz treatment, all for the sake of some tough new street girl.
I wouldn't mind, but Mandy was my discovery. I'd found her hanging around the Bloodvurt stalls in the underground market, her eyes full of buzz and spark as she stroked the feathers, trying some on, just to the lips, falling under spells of violence and pain. And me falling under the spell of her. So I'd asked her to join, become a Stash Rider. She made fun of the name, but still, I could see the need in her eyes. Maybe I was just trying to replace Des the easy way. Maybe. Maybe we all get a little desperate at times. Maybe there are no easy ways.
"You heard about Icarus, Bee?" I said, keeping it cool.
He didn't even bother replying, too busy drawing in lungfuls of first-thing Haze. Its pungent odour was giving me half-glimpses of the dream and the things that I saw there made me shiver. "Icarus Wing? Didn't Mandy tell you about him?" I glanced over at Mandy. She was shovelling spoonfuls of JFK flakes into the gap between her smeared lips, her eyes dead to my need. "She told me that Icarus Wing was bringing in some Voodoo today." Still no response from the Beetle. "You know this Icarus guy, Bee?"
"No." His voice coming slow and easy, from the Haze.
"No?"
"Never heard of him."
"You know everybody, Bee! Everybody!"
"What are you saying?" His voice growing sharper.
"You're holding out on me? I -"
"Fuck you, Scribble!"
"Bee -"
"You don't know who's helping you? Is that your problem? Is it?"
His eyes were cold and steely, through the smoke of his joint.
"You two have a good night?" Don't know why I said it. Just came out. They looked at each other. They smiled at each other. "You think Bridget's going to like that?" I asked, knowing full well that Brid would take a nail file to Mandy's eyes. God knows what she'd do to Beetle. Maybe she'd pour all her smoke into his head, working his brain up, into a frenzy. They called it a Shadow-fuck. It was like doing Skull Shit, with the lights on.
"Bridget will have to live with it," The Beetle said.
"Where is the shadowgirl, anyway?" Mandy asked. She made the word shadow sound like some kind of bad disease.
"She slept in my room."
"Whoo, whoo, whoo!" shouted Mandy, full of rude life.
"Nice one, Stephen!"
"It's not like that, Bee."
"Stephen? Is that Scribble's real name?" laughed Mandy. "Aw, how cute!"
"That's the way with Stevie baby, Mandy," the Beetle said, knowing full well he was getting to me. "It's never like that. Not with women."
"Piss off, Bee." My best reply. "And the name's Scribble."
"He's very sensitive this morning," Mandy said.
"Maybe we should sell some bits off the Thing," the Beetle said. This was just to get me going even more. I wasn't having it.
"No way, Beetle. No fucking way!"
"Just bits off him. The Stash Rider wallet is empty. I can't wait till the next dripfeed. Come on, Scribble! Just an arm, or a leg. A chunk off that fat stomach."
"We need him! All of him!" I had hold of Beetle's arm. My voice was straining; "You know why, Bee! Desdemona… she…"
"Big Thing'll grow them back, anyway. What's the loss?"
"I'm getting desperate, Bee… I… I think Des is reaching out. She…"
"What is it, Scribble?" asked Mandy, around a last mouthful of flakes.
I looked from her, and then back to Beetle. How much could I tell them? Should I tell them about the telephone? Christ! Beetle thought I was crazy anyway; he was certain that Desdemona was dead by now. The phone call would just finish off the tale of Scribble's madness. Shit! Maybe I was mad! Maybe Desdemona was just living on, inside of me? No, no. Don't even think that!
"She's alive, Beetle." I did my best to keep the voice calm. "I know it."
A warm light came to the Beetle's eyes. "Sure thing, Scribb. She's alive. We'll find her. Right, Mandy?"
"You bet."
They were just being good to me. I could live with that.
"Shall we go see Tristan? Would that suit you, Scribble?" asked the Beetle.,j
"Tristan?"
"An old friend of mine. He's a spot-on guy. Sold me this gun. Knows all the stuff I've forgotten. And then some."
"He'll have English Voodoo?"
"He doesn't do Vurt any more. He might know where to find some."
"He might know about Icarus Wing?" I was getting some kind of hope back. At least we were moving. I just wanted to keep moving, keep the faith going. "You reckon, Bee?"
"We could try," the Beetle smiled. That old Beetle smile. "And we can check out this Seb friend of Mandy's first. Does that plan grab you, Scribb?"
I was falling for him again; the Beetle was in command and the world was looking rosier.
Something always has to spoil the day.
That bad something was somebody knocking on the door. Not the bell, ringing from far away, from the ground floor. No… this was a close-up attack. And the noise was powder to the Beetle's trigger. There was something human out there. No one did that any more. The flat was rigged up to the in-house system, and only bona fide inhabitants could find a way past the doorcam. Bypassing that system was a beauty, and only a cop could have managed it. A way-up cop.
Beetle activated into jam mode, moving like a land speed record. First thing he did was slip the gun into his pocket, then turning to us, he whispered; "Get that fucker out of here!"
That fucker was the Thing-from-Outer-Space, who was still deep in feather-dreams next to the fire. Mandy and I took each end of him, like veterans, and bundled him into the store cupboard. I got back to hear the Beetle talking to some presence through a one-inch gap in the door. "Certainly, Officer," he was saying. "No problem. Please come in. Feel free."
The Beetle sounded super-confident, and no doubt had cleaned the floor of all incriminating evidence, but how did they find us? Maybe the Vurt-U-Want cop had flashed a better than usual message. Maybe the Platt Fields' cop had seen the alien in our arms.
A real life cop walked into the living room. Not the shadow kind. This cop was flesh and blood; collector's item. She had a curly perm. Yeah, that collectable.
"What's happening?'she asked.
There was a moment of silence. Over by the door stood the shecop's partner, some mealy mouthed fleshcop from hell.
"Nothing much," replied the Beetle.
The two cops were wearing dangerous smiles.
"Nice pad," said the boss. "I'd like to look around."
"Any time. You got a warrant?"
"Do I need one? Mr…?"
"Beetle. And I have this thing about privacy."
"We have reason to believe that you are harbouring an alien presence."
"A what?"
"A Vurt being. A live drug."
"Really?"
"You know that's totally illicit?"
"Is it?" Beetle was playing it cool.
"Just checking," said the cop woman, eyes all over the unused Blues and the played-out Creams that littered the floor.
"Nothing but the best," the Beetle told her. "Strictly legal."
"Of course," she said. "Nothing but."
"What's your name?" asked Mandy, from nowhere.
The cop woman looked directly into Mandy's eyes. "I don't need to tell you that."
Mandy gave her the bad eye, the best Bloodvurt kind. I'd seen that look before; it made you fearful. The cop took it like a feather's glance. No sweat. Cop was cool.
"Well, it has been pleasant," said Beetle.
The shecop was looking all around the room, searching for clues. "I'm just warning you. Don't go upsetting the neighbours."
There you go. Nosey bitch from the next floor down.
"We'll do our best," the Beetle told the cop.
"Listen good, kid. I'm not easily satisfied."
"Well I can see that."
"You got a job?"
"Not as such."
"I have this thing about dripfeeders; they really get on my case."
"We can't all be in sugar."
There were some intense moments passing by, as Beetle tried his best sex charms on the woman. She was having none of it. She just stared right back, her eyes full up of hard metal. Beetle meets his match!
It was the dumbo partner that broke the spell; "Let's split, Murdoch. Just a bunch of wasted kids."
Murdoch didn't look back at him. She just jabbed a long finger at Beetle, like a weapon. "I'm coming back for you. You got that?"
"I've got it," replied the Bee, cool as fuck. The door went shuck behind them, closing with a comfort fix. Beetle was out of the cool in an instant; he popped two Jammers and went straight for me and Mandy.
"What's this about the neighbour shit?" he demanded. His face was full up of anger. One long streak of hair had escaped from the grip of Vaz, and was swinging around against his powdered face like a black plant creeper. "Well what the fuck's going on?" he shouted, and Mandy and I couldn't even look at each other any more.
"It was my fault," Mandy said.
"Tell me about it," said Beetle.
"We got caught on the landing, carrying the Thing," I added.
"Oh, brilliant."
"Some woman on the second floor," said Mandy.
"Didn't you cover it?"
Mandy looked nervous. Her eyes turned to mine.
"You know that we didn't, Bee," I offered, praying to the God of Vurt to take me right out of that room and up to the theatre of heaven, where the angels play.
No such luck.
The Beetle hit me. Across the face. Felt like a hammer. The real kind, mind. Hardened steel, with a hard wood handle.
I took my hand away from my nose, and there was blood on the fingers and the palm.
That guy is gonna suffer one day.
And he would. But not at my hand.
We were in Jam mode, screaming down the back roads, all rattling around in the van. Me, the Thing, Brid and Mandy. Beetle at the wheel, jammed up to the nines. The scenes of south Manchester sped past the black windows like a bad foreign movie. The Beetle had popped so many Jammers, fear was just a bad memory. The man was on a demon trip, and he was taking us with him.
Brid was wide awake for once. It had been my job to wake her. Which was like waking up a stone, some dead lump of inanimate matter. Man, she had screamed at me, and then, whilst the half-dead world came rushing back, she had called for Beetle's blood, promising slow tortures.
I'd had to slap her.
She slapped me back.
Which hurt.
Which hurt the both of us.
Then I'd half-kicked her down the stairs, into the van. And then back for the Thing-from-Outer-Space. He was just coming round from the night of feathers. I'd give him about an hour or so, and then he'd be screaming out for more memories of the homeland. Christ! Who'd want to live there? It was Mandy and I, of course, left with the task of carrying the Thing. This time we covered him in a blanket, and the journey down the stairs went like a dream, until Twinkle showed up.
"Is that you, Mister Scribble?" her tinkling voice asked.
"Get lost, kid!" was my response.
"Mister Scribble, that's not fair," she answered back.
Twinkle was a blue-eyed sweet kid of ten, with a patchwork bob of hair, as blonde as the day was doomed. I loved her dearly except that she was a total pain, and a bit of a nutflake.
"What's under the blanket, Mister Scribble?"
"Kid, fuck off," said Mandy.
But the kid was hot: "It's that alien from space, isn't it?" she asked.
Twinkle lived on the first floor, the child of a three parent family; man, woman, hermaphrodite.
"It's just Bridget under here," I offered. "We can't wake her up."
"No way. I saw you kicking Brid down just before. You've got an illegal alien."
"No we haven't," said Mandy.
"I've seen him before. I've seen you carrying him around. The whole place knows."
"Listen, Twinkle…"
"Leave her, Scribb," said Mandy. "Let's get it loaded up."
"I wouldn't mind an alien of my own," Twinkle continued. And then, the dreaded question; "Can I be in your gang? Can I, Mister Scribble? Can I be a junior Stash Rider?"
She was always after this. "No you bloody can't!" I answered. "Now get out of here!"
Twinkle looked at me for a couple of seconds, and then took a slow, toe-scuffing walk back down the corridor, towards the door of her flat.
First off the Beetle drove us over to Chorlton, where we checked out the Vurt-U-Want for signs of Seb. The manager, a paper-thin young wisp of a girl, told us that Sebastian hadn't turned up for work that morning, and that, as of now, he was off the payroll anyway, for bringing the cops down on them, and that Vurt-U-Want was a peace-loving company, and that kind of employee just didn't fit in with their current business vision. She gave us his address from the employee file, and we drove the van out there, West Didsbury, only to find that Seb wasn't in, and that he hadn't be home since last night. The pale and spotted youth that answered the door told us that he didn't have a clue where Seb was.
Now we were heading down the Princess Road, towards Bottletown and Tristan, away from the bad dream of Murdoch and the cops. It wasn't that bad, maybe, not to my mind; just a dumb cop out on a limb, looking for the easy pickings. Beetle thought otherwise. "That Murdoch bitch will be back, no kidding," he called from the front seat. "She's got that look, that hunger. Believe me. You ever been down the Bottle, Mandy?"
"No."
"You'll love it. It's real scary -"
"Beetle, you're a twat," Bridget announced.
"That's life," he answered.
"I heard you last night."
"And here's me trying to keep it quiet. It would have been worse, otherwise."
Brid threw Mandy a bullet stare.
"That girl can sing. Real good," said Beetle.
I thought Brid was going to tear Mandy's eyes out then, except that the van was snaking like a rocket in a bad patch of space, and the Bee was driving like a maniac. He made a deliberate swerve towards some old pedhead with a walking frame. That old woman screamed. Beetle missed her by a Jammy whisker and then made an ultra-left onto Princess Road.
"Jesus Christ, Bee!" snarled Brid, from the floor.
We all got back in place and Mandy hid her face behind the latest copy of Game Cat. She was on some kind of crash course in home study, no doubt trying to get within loving distance of Beetle. No chance, baby. He's a closed up shop. Find that out, and soon. Some things you just can't say in the back of a crowded-up box of rust on wheels, speeding down towards Bottletown.
"I'm looking at you," said Brid, her dark eyes brooding on Mandy.
Mandy ignored her, face hid behind the mag. "We going down the Bottle, Bee?" she asked.
"That's right, babes. Straight down the Bottle."
"We're going to visit Tristan?"
"We are."
"After English Voodoo?" Mandy was playing on all the information she had over Bridget.
"That's right, babes."
"I found out about Icarus Wing," said Mandy, proud as a pimp.
"This is my van, bitch." The Brid spat, once, and then carried on; "Get the fuck out!"
"Pardon me," replied Mandy, lowering the Game Cat, "but the vehicle is moving at quite a pace."
"I know what you're thinking."
Mandy looked nervous, just for a moment. Her eyes flicked over to the Beetle, and back to Brid. Brid had her best smoky stare on. "It's good you know, then," said Mandy, braving the stare. "Beetle feels the same." The Beetle said nothing. New girl had everything to learn about the man. "Maybe now you'll leave us alone." A groove of pain appeared across Mandy's brow. That's how it started. Beads of sweat running down her face. Her mouth tightened. "Beetle!" Her voice was feeling it too. Christ! Brid was doing the shadow-fuck! Mandy was holding her hands to her head, her face creased up with the pain. "Beetle!!! What's she doing?! Help me!!!!"
"Brid!" I shouted. "Leave her alone!" Did no good.
"Beetle!!!" Beetle didn't even look round to see the action. Maybe he knew just how far Bridget would go, before deciding that the message was home. Maybe.
"Get the fuck off! Fucking shadowbitch!!!"
Bridget was smiling. "You know what they say, new girl. Pure is poor -"
Mandy went for her, claws out, tripping over the Thing, who was still too feather-drunk to care. The two women ended up in a mess on the floor, and the Thing was joining in anyway, tentacles waving; no doubt adding it to the whatever Vurt dream he was still revelling in.
And I was just watching the mess, thinking, why is life like this? Why the fuck is life like this?
Beetle poured the van into the Moss Lane East.
Brid and Mandy rolled off the Thing, and into a corner clinch. I couldn't say a thing, but the Beetle was on hand; "Quit the fucking. We're here."
Indeed we were. Beetle swung the van into a parking space marked NO GO. Jammer didn't care any more. The van jolted to a vicious halt, sending Mandy and Brid back into the embraces of the Thing. The six tentacles wrapped themselves around Bridget. It was a loving embrace. Mandy scrambled away from the mess, breathing hard. "Fuck that! Fuck it! I just don't need that! Okay!"
The Beetle turned back to look at the women. "My bed is warm and wide," he said, "and life is short. Is that clear?"
"Clear," said Mandy.
Brid said nothing. Her eyes were closing to the pain. She was moving deeper into the Thing's enveloping body, gathering comfort from the deep shadows there.
Beetle twisted further round, to look me sideways in the eye. "Let's go, Scribble." Then he saw something in my eyes. "You scared?"
"No."
"You should be. Pures don't go down the Bottle."
"I'm waiting. Let's go."
"No options. Know what I mean, Scribb?"
Sure. Sometimes you just get no options. Even when you're as pure as the rain, and your life is just a wet kiss on glass. And the Thing was speaking to me. "Xhasy! Xha, xha! Xhasy, xha!" Don't leave me here, alone. Something like that.
"We can't take the Thing," I said. "Too dangerous. We need him too much. One of us will have to stay."
"That's right, Scribb. That's why you're staying here?"
"Beetle!"
"No options."
"It's my trip, Bee. I know what we're after."
"And I know this place. Your battle's to come, Scribb."
Mandy opened the back doors. "Let's do it, Bee!"
Beetle turned back to Bridget. She was lying in the arms of the alien. "You got anything to say to me, Brid?" His voice had some kind of feeling in it. Tenderness. Just a trace. Bridget lifting her sleepy head slightly, from the arms of the Thing.
"It's your game, Beetle," her voice was shadow-deep. And then I got it. She wasn't talking, she was just thinking! I'd picked up the path between them.
The Beetle answered in a whisper. "That's right. My game."
Beetle got out of the van, and went round to the back doors, where Mandy was waiting for him. He leaned into the van, to talk to me. "You look after things this side," he said. Then he lowered his voice some. "I'm doing this for you, Scribble. Remember?"
"I remember."
"And for Desdemona…"
I remember.
EXCHANGE MECHANISMS. Sometimes we lose precious things. Friends and colleagues, fellow travellers in the Vurt, sometimes we lose them; even lovers we sometimes lose. And get bad things in exchange; aliens, objects, snakes, and sometimes even death. Things we don't want. This is part of the deal, part of the game deal; all things, in all worlds, must be kept in balance. Kittlings often ask, who decides on the swappings? Now then, some say it's all accidental; that some poor Vurt thing finds himself too close to a door, at too crucial a time, just when something real is being lost. Whoosh! Swap time! Others say that some kind of overseer is working the MECHANISMS OF EXCHANGE, deciding the fate of innocents. The Cat can only tease at this, because of the big secrets involved, and because of the levels between you, the reader, and me, the Game Cat. Hey, listen; I've struggled to get where I am today; why should I give you the easy route? Get working, kittlings! Reach up higher. Work the Vurt.
Just remember Hobart's rule; R = V 177 H, where H is Hobart's constant. In the common tongue; any given worth of reality can only be swapped for the equivalent worth of Vurtuality, plus or minus 0.267125 of the original worth. Yes my kittlings, it's not about weight or volume or surface area. It's about worth. How much the lost ones count, in the grand scheme of things. You can only swap back those that add up to something, within Hobart's constant. Like for like, give or take 0.267125.
We have prostrated ourselves at the feet of goddess Vurt, and we must accept the sacrifice. You'll want them back of course, your lost and lonely ones. You'll cry out for them, all through the dark and empty nights. Swapback can be made, but the way is full of knives, glued-up doors, pathways of glass. Only the strong can make it happen. Listen up. Be careful. Be very, very careful. You have been warned. This comes from the heart.
The Beetle and Mandy, walking on a path of glass.
The noise of a window cracking in the afternoon.
A spectrum of colours radiating out from the sun, as it flared above the high-rises. The light refracting through moisture suspended in the air.
The shimmering air.
A million pieces of the sun shining on the walkways.
Beetle and Mandy disappearing into the rainbow mirage.
I followed them as best I could, moving up to the front seat for a better look. From every direction the crystal sharp segments of smashed up wine bottles, and beer bottles, and gin bottles, caught and magnified every stray beam of Manchester light. The whole of Bottletown, from the shopping centre to the fortress flats, shone and glittered like a broken mirror of the brightest star. Such is beauty, in the midst of the city of tears. In Bottletown even our tears flicker like jewels.
I knew that the Beetle had the gift of seeing beauty in ugliness. It's just that I'm more used to ugliness than he is, seeing it every day in cruel mirrors, and in the mirrors of women's eyes.
Bottletown had only been around for ten years or so. Some kind of urban dream. Pretty soon the wholesome families moved out and the young and the listless moved in, and then the blacks and the robo-crusties and the shadowgoths and the students. Pretty soon the students moved out, sick to the back of mummy and daddy's car with too much burglary, too much mugging. Then the blacks moved out, leaving the place to the non-pure - hybrids only need apply. About a year later the council opened a pair of bottle banks on the outskirts of the town, one for white glass, one for green. The nice people from the outlying districts would come there, just to the edge of dirtiness, in order to drop their evidence of excessive alcohol intake. The council stopped emptying the bottle banks, and anybody walking there had to sink into a bed of pain, just to get near the good times.
When the banks were full, and overflowing, still they came, breaking bottles on the pavements and the stairs and the landings. This is how the world fills up. Shard by shard, jag by jag, until the whole place is some kind of glitter palace, sharp and painful to the touch.
On one of the nearby walls someone had scrawled the words, pure is poor, but I was watching Beetle and Mandy rise above all that, walking the stairwells one by one, heading for the fourth floor. They would vanish from sight, and then come back into view, as they reached each landing. It was a rhythmic picture, and I was lulled by it. I saw them for a moment, just before they entered the fourth staircase, then they were gone, and my eyes jerked up to the next landing, waiting for them.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting for them to reappear.
Minutes passed with no sign. And then Mandy was running along the fourth corridor, some stranger chasing her.
I was out of the van in seconds. Glass cutting into my feet, through my trainers, as I raced towards the ground floor entrance. Lift wasn't working, so what's new? I took the stairs three at a time. I could already hear Mandy's cries, even from down there, that low, and I didn't have a weapon, no gun, no knife, just these two weak arms, these legs, pounding the stairs.
Second landing.
Racing upwards.
Towards the noise.
Falling onto the third landing, out of breath, sweat pouring off me. Get up! Get up, dumbfuck! Keep going!
Next stairs. I could hear the Beetle's voice now, calling out in defiance, and all the light draining from the day, as my eyes filled with sweat and the blood made a fast pulse all through my veins. I was running through the feelings, struggling to find courage, and my left ankle was throbbing with a piercing ache. Don't start on me now, old wound.
There was a fight going on, just beyond the stairwell, and I managed to pull myself back, holding onto fear.
Crack! My body hitting the liftshaft, pressing itself into the shadows there.
I glanced around the corner, taking it all in. The Beetle was down. He was down on the floor, his arms clutched around his head. Three men were laying into him with kicks to the head, the chest, and the back. The men had that death warmed-up look so popular with the younger robogoth; all plastic bones shining proudly through tight, pale skins. A woman was overseeing the attack. She had the smoke coming off her, dark swirls of mist rising from her skin, just like Bridget when she was roused. Shadowgoth! Mandy's voice was echoing down the walkway, all the curses of the young and strong. Then she came into my field of vision, being dragged along by another two robogoths. She was digging her nails into their flesh. Did no good; that roboflesh was long dead to feeling. One too many live bootleg Vurts of the Shadow Cure, I guess. The woman had black webs over her eyes and she was chanting a black litany - Pure is poor! Kill the pure! Mandy screamed in pain as the goths flung her against a wall, and held her tight there. The shadowgoth came up close to Mandy's face. I guess Mandy was cruising for another shadow-fuck because the first thing she did was spit a big glob of sputum straight into the shadowgoth's face.
The Beetle and Mandy were out there, still fighting, and all I could do was cling to the shadows of a dead liftshaft, holding back the urge to run, to jerk out, except that this wasn't theatre, this wasn't a feather trip. Real life, like Yellow feathers, has no jerk-out facility. This is why the two are so alike.
Even in shodows, no place to hide.
A slithering noise at my feet.
Shadowgoth wasn't reacting to the spit that clung to her cheeks. "I'm getting a tingle," she said. For one second I thought she was referring to herself, to her feelings of power, but then I got the story.
Shadowgoth had heard me thinking!
Christ! Girl must have a heavy shadow, to think around corners, into the darkness.
That slithering at my feet again, and my ankle calling to me, from the years gone by, with a hard knot of pain.
"I'm getting the tingle of another pure one, my brothers," Shadowgoth said. "Pure is coming!"
I watched them from my depths, turning towards the darkness where I buried myself. Their robo-eyes were glinting with red lights, and the shadowgoth had eyes of smoke, which were looking into my soul, seeing the fear there. The slithering was so loud now, I just had to glance down. Dreamsnake! Violet and green whisperings. Snake seeking out my wound!
It must have been the panic and the fear that sent me spinning, into a vision of myself catching spikes between my teeth, spitting them loose, snapped in two, taking up a long-handled hammer against the mighty weight of the Nailgunners. Shit! I felt good! Done this low-level Blue some years previous, but here it was again, in my brain, and totally featherless! Vurt was called Spike Attack and usually I ended up dead from the spikes, one in each eye, but now I felt good! Well good, and I wanted to take on the world, especially some thin-bodied smokegirl and her rusting robo-nerds.
I stepped out of the shadows, kicking at the snake the same time. It landed some four feet off, directly under the feet of one of the robogoths. He jumped back from the snake, losing his balance. Goth was falling. He looked a bad mess, on the floor.
This was me, Scribble, hero of Spike Attack, coming to the rescue.
Some kind of fool.
The snake was withering from the Spiked-up strength of my kick, but somewhere between there and my reaching the fray, the Vurt dropped away and I felt a distant pain somewhere, far off, and then realised it was my cheekbone. A fist like iron had smashed into it, and then another, to the left eye, and I was down, and thinking. This isn't me! I'm not like this! Last time I had a fight, I was thirteen years old. It was my dad doing the beating and I got hammered. I had my arms wrapped like a mother around my head. I stole a look through my fingers and thumbs, only to see the shadowgoth standing over me. She aimed a vicious beauty at my teeth. Jesus, that hurt! This was some heavy kind of real life, and it hurt like a knife blow, even more so because the glass shards were breaking my skin as I pressed myself into the floor, seeking relief.
Found none.
The girl's monkey boot swung back for another attack and I was thinking. All I want to do is be in Vurt. Be in Vurt forever. Life's too much for me. I can't stand the pain.
That boot never made it.
There was a sharp cry of pain, and then a hard crack. And it wasn't me! It was nothing to do with me! I rolled over into a sitting-up position. Through a haze of blood I saw Mandy pulling the goth girl back, away from my tender features. Two of the robogoths were nursing painful wounds. Man, I loved that girl just then, and I wished her total happiness and forever more. The Beetle had grabbed hold of a stray ankle. He was twisting it all around, until you could hear the plastic bones cracking. I was on my feet again, and the battle was turning. Shadowgoth pulled out a knife.
The blade of a knife catching fragments of colours, as it moved back and forth in the hands of a woman, over a walkway of broken glass.
Mandy moved back from the knife.
Beetle lifted the leg of the robogoth up, with a fierce jerk, so that the sad fucker fell back, against a hard brick wall. Shadowgoth swung the knife around to face him. Beetle just laughed at her. She thrust forwards, the blade glittering. It entered Beetle's flesh, the left side of his stomach. He fell back, his mouth open, his eyes wide and staring. He clutched at the wound with his hands. Mandy went for the Shadow. That new girl was proving herself. The blade came back round, in a circle of colours. Mandy made a perfect move backwards, away from the slice, except that a robogoth was waiting for her. He wrapped his arms around her body, pulling her back. The shadowgoth moved in, holding the knife tight against Mandy's throat. The Beetle was slumped against the wall and I was the only one left to save the day.
"Hey fuckers!" I shouted, or tried to. My voice was weak from the struggle. "You better leave my friends alone!"
Oh wow! I guess you can say anything, if the blood is stirred enough. The shadowgoth laughed. Her robo partners were back in action by now. They gathered in a circle around us. Shadowgoth turned her face towards me, blinked, just the once, and then I felt her finger in there, inside my mind, pulling me apart. Shadow-fuck!
All I wanted was a shadowcop to flicker into life, except that this was the Bottle, a no-go cop zone.
The game's over, little man," the shadowgoth said.
Oh fuck. Game's over.
Just then a door opened. Some two flats down. And a man stepped through. His hair was a long, thick net of grease, leading straight back into the doorway.
Guy was beautiful.
He had a dog on a long lead. The dog reached out with a vicious set of jaws, took a loud snap, came up with that errant dream-snake in its jaws. The dog swallowed it in a quick gulp.
The goths looked back at the white guy with the jungle hair, and the dog from hell.
"Tristan! My man!" The Beetle calling from where he lay.
"The fun's over," said the jungle hair.
He had a shotgun, cocked and ready. And a dog.
Cocked and ready.
No contest.
The room was thick with Haze. And a jungle of hair.
We were all safe and sound inside of number 407, the home of Tristan. His girlfriend, Suze, was bathing our wounds with some herbal concoction. It smelt like the ripest fruit, but tasted like wine, and it touched our cuts with a sweet hand. Tyrannosaurus Rex were singing on Tristan's system, all about the light of the magical moon, and I could hear dogs howling through the walls.
A line of dreamsnake skins were pinned over the fireplace.
Tristan had lodged his shotgun against the doorjamb, just in case. Now he was mixing up a lethal brew in a stoneware pot. Suze dropped some seeds in there as well. It gave off a dense pall of smoke and the smell was wondrous to the senses.
"Who the fuck was that goth woman?" asked the Beetle.
"Take a good sniff of that, my beauties," announced Tristan. So we breathed deeply of it, as the gunmetal blue mist filled the room. And straight away I was into paradise land, touched by angels, caressed by spirits.
"Who was she?" the Beetle asked once more.
"Can't you handle it, Beetle?" Tristan said. "The Beetle getting beaten by a woman?" And maybe that was it; the hardcore man was smarting. Suze had lifted his shirt up, free of his jeans. She was applying the sweet lotion to his cut.
"Tell me! Who was she? I need to know."
"They call her the Nimbus," Suze said.
"Nimbus is one top-level shadowgirl," added Tristan.
"She's just a mist, Trist," Suze replied.
"Nowhere near as lovely as you, my lover," Tristan said, running his fingers through the smoke that was rising in thick waves from the herb jars. And that was true. It wasn't anything obvious, Suze's beauty, but it was getting to me. Her look was cool, serene, like she'd lived through some bad things, but was now on the other side. It was the eyes that got you; they had a soft golden glow to them. What with the eyes, and all that hair, this woman was affecting me. Maybe this smoke was getting to me. Through the Haze I saw that Mandy was flat out on the floor, wrapped up in the dog. His paws were all over her.
"That's one big robodog, Tristan," the Beetle said.
"Karli? She's just a puppy," he replied.
A puppy. That was the biggest dog I'd ever seen!
Suze was speaking. I kind of caught it through the mist. "That's a nice trophy, Beetle." She was admiring the snakehead attached to Bee's lapel. "We don't have no trouble with snakes around here. Not with the dogs."
"Yeah! That dog did good," the Beetle said.
"What brings you around, Beetle?" asked Tristan.
"What else, Tristie. Drugs."
"What kind? Got some nice Mexican Haze in. You're breathing it right now."
"I'm looking for some good Vurt, my man."
"Now you know, that's not really my trip. Not these days. I'm into natural things now. Vurt isn't natural."
"We're looking for English Voodoo."
Tristan went quiet then. He tugged for a few seconds at his hair. Suze felt the tug and responded in the same way, tugging back on the plaits that joined them. They were twinned crusties, sharing the same haircut. Six feet of thick entwined hair stretched between them, and you couldn't see where one ended, and the other began. Over the years their hair had knotted, and knotted hard, until separation was an unthinkable torture. They would walk the world together, never less than six feet apart. Now there's love for you.
"You want English Voodoo?" asked Tristan.
"You know where to find some?" Beetle said.
"No. Not at all."
"You telling the truth?"
"I got rid. Pretty quick. I don't like that stuff. It's not natural."
"But you had some?" I asked, shaking from the knowledge.
"I told you, the once. I don't do Vurt any more. Period. And may I suggest, young kid…" Tristan stared directly at me. "That you keep off that stuff yourself. It's a killer."
"You heard of Icarus Wing?" I asked.
"What's that? Some new killer feather? Man, they just can't leave it alone."
"No. It's a man. A man's name. He's a feather seller."
"Like I said, I don't work those areas any more."
Suze had gone silent. She was adding some new herbs to the pot. A fresh brew of Haze floated into the room.
"For old time's sake, Tristie," asked the Beetle.
"It means that much, yeah?" Tristan replied.
"We lost someone. To the Vurt."
Tristan went quiet again. And when he did speak, this was all he could come up with; "That's a bummer, Bee."
"You really not got any Voodoo, Tristan?" asked the Beetle.
Tristan's reply was the softest whisper; "Years ago. Years ago."
"Just wondered."
"Wonder not, Bee. English Voodoo fucks. It leads to bad things."
This was too much for me. "Someone good," I said. "Desdemona."
"Who's Desdemona?" asked Suze.
"Scribble's sister," replied Beetle. "We lost her. To the Voodoo."
"Uh uh, I get it," said Tristan. "Swapback time. It doesn't work, Beetle. I've never known it work."
"Scribble's on a mission trip," the Beetle told them. "And we're all getting dragged along. He's set on finding her. He'd give his all. Wouldn't you, Scribb?"
Tristan and Suze looked towards each other. I saw their hair as a river, flowing from each to each.
"Only a fool goes into English Voodoo," said Suze. She was looking straight at me. The robopuppy had come up close to me, licking my face. I was doing my best to discourage her, but that dog just kept on licking. "Karli likes you," Suze added. I was covered in dog spit by now, so I couldn't argue. "Tell us," she repeated, and something in her voice got to me, some kind of recognition. Like I'd known her for ages, without ever meeting. What was that feeling?
"You'd better tell the story, Scribb," the Beetle said to me. "You're better at it than I am."
So I told them.
It went like this…
Brother and sister walking it home from a club; vanless, way past the last bus time, no money for an Xcab. We were halfway down the Wilmslow Road when we heard a screaming. A woman screaming, and we took that walk, right into a fist fight
A guy was clutching a woman, shaking her. She was screaming, over and over, face twisted towards the indifferent traffic.
"Get off me! Stop hitting me! He's hitting me! Get him off me!"
"I think we should stop," said Desdemona.
"What?"
"I think we should do something."
Oh wow, like thanks, sister.
"What's going on here?" I said, my voice doing its best to sound cool and hard. Totally failing.
"We just found this woman, man," said the guy, a black guy. "We was just driving along.",
His car was parked just forward a small way, one wheel mounted upon the pavement Another guy, a white one, was hunched up in the driving seat. There was a woman in the back seat, and she was kind of rocking, you know, back and forth like a snake victim.
"She was screaming by the road," the black guy said. "Just screaming… you know?"
"He's lying," announced Desdemona, and it wasn't exactly pleasing.
"I am not fucking lying!"
"So what's going on?" I asked, still trembling, just to please the sister.
"I was just trying to help her," he started, but I think we'd got him riled, because just then the woman found a way out of his arms. She ran straight into the road, into the path of an oncoming car. Car screeched to a halt, wheels slipping. Good driving but not that good. Car hit the woman. More like this, actually; woman hit the car, kind of threw herself at it. She was down, face to the tarmac, for maybe two seconds. Then she sprang up again, banging on other cars as they passed her by, slowly, scared faces peering out.
"Help me! Help me!" she was screaming.
Nobody stopped. Who the hell stops these days?
Drivers were looking at me as though I was some villain in this. Felt strange. One of those moments you'll think you'll remember forever, but it just slips away. Until such a day arrives when you've got nothing else to do but list your memories, nowhere else to live but inside them.
Early morning air was misty and serene, with hours to go until sunshine.
Screaming woman was miles away, seemed like, almost down to the next set of lights. I could hear cars braking over the screams.
The black guy was just standing around, hopping from foot to foot, building his anger up. White guy just sitting in the car, chewing gum.
Desdemona had opened the back door. Now she was reaching in to help the swaying woman.
"I think we need the cops, Scribb," said Desdemona, from the back seat. "Girl's in a bad way. She's feathered up on something. I can't move her."
The cops? I'd never called them before.
"I don't think we need that," answered the black, moving towards me. His fists were bunched up, and he had that look on him, like the idea that pain was a pleasure to give.
I backed away, towards the car.
"Are these guys hurting you?" I heard Desdemona ask.
No answer from the comatose girl. The other one, down the road some, was screaming anyway for the both of them.
"Des?" I whispered, trying to get her attention. Sister wasn't answering so I made a quick turn, aiming to drag her out of there. But she was too busy to care about me; too busy searching through the woman's handbag.
"What are you doing, sister?" I asked
"Looking for an address. I think these men are using her."
"Big deal, sis. There's a bad guy out here."
"Keep him off, Scribb!" the sister said.
Well thanks for that. Like how?
The black guy was up close now, waving his fists around, close enough to do damage to a soft face.
Sound of a cop van in the distance.
Fists faltering.
Sometimes, don't you just love the cops, despite the fact that they have hurt some good friends of yours? Because sometimes, just occasionally, they turn up in the right place, at just the right time. Don't you just love them for that?
Cop siren sounding. And the black stepped back, a small step. Then another.
Then he was running. Out of there!
White guy started the car engine.
Desdemona was half in, half out of the car. "I've found something!" she shouted. The car started to move off, and Des was thrown out, hard to the pavement.
The siren bursting in my brain, as the cop van pulls up in front of the car, wheels squealing, blocking the escape.
And although my sister's body was on the floor, although she was obviously in pain, and the sun wasn't even awake yet, never mind rising, still I could see her grasping tight hold of something. It was feathery, and it was glinting yellow as it passed through the air, towards her pocket.
What you got there? What you got there, sweet sister? Must be a beauty.
If only I'd known then. If only.
Suze and Tristan are washing their hair, which is each other's hair. Which is their shared hair. As they listened to my story.
Mandy was awake again, sitting on the floor, playing with the big puppy dog. Something about its body made me uneasy; the way the plastic bones shone through the taut flesh stretched over its rib-cage. Suze called the dog Karli.
The Beetle was sucking on a demon bong-pipe, his eyes drifting to other worlds, as the water popped in bubbles of Haze.
I was trapped in the armchair, drugged by the smoke, fascinated by the ritual.
Suze was taking water to the joint locks. Adding herbs to the water, she mixed up a slick lather, which glistened with perfume. Like you could see the smell, you know? She worked this lather into each thick strand of hair, each in turn, from her own roots to Tristan's, until their hair was a stream of suds. It was lovely to look at, and Tristan was smiling through it all. "You're very privileged to see this," Suze said, in a whisper.
"It's a good story, Scribble," Tristan said. "You want to carry on?"
Their eyes were heavy-lidded from the shampoo pleasure, and it was like watching sex. Drugged-up sex. "It's very beautiful," whispered Mandy.
Through the walls I could hear the hound dogs howl.
"Don't worry about them, Scribble," said Tristan, dreamily.
Desdemona and I, back in the Rusholme Gardens, fingering the feather.
The Beetle and Bridget were out for the night and the morning, travelling in the van, visiting a down south Vurt Fest, gathering contacts and suppliers.The cops had taken some details, pronounced us innocent. We were back home, and it was all ours; the flat, the feather, the love.
"Wonder what it's called?" Desdemona asked, letting the feather's yellow glints shine under the table lamp. The feather was 70% black, 20% pink, 10% yellow. There was a pale space on the shaft where somebody had peeled the label off.
"Plug us in, Des," I said.
"No way!" she shouted. "Not on our own."
She was following the Beetle's rules. Nobody goes in alone, just in case it gets real bad in there.
"Go on!" I pleaded. "We've got each other. What can go wrong?"
This I will never forgive.
"Beetle's doing it," I told her. "Right this moment. Down South. Oh come on, sister! He's at a Vurt Fest! With Bridget! Of course he's doing it. He's in Vurtland, right now!"
"We've never done a Yellow before, Scribb."
This was true. Yellows were ultra-rare. Low-lifers just didn't come across them. "It's not a full Yellow," I said. "It's just got some Yellow in it. Look, a tiny amount. It's safe."
"We don't even know what it is!"
"Let's do it!"
She gazed at the feather for a full minute, saying nothing, just drinking in the rainbow of colours. And then, finally; "Let's do it, Scribb." It was a soft voice. And she looked at me with those eyes made out of plums, juicy plums, as I stole the feather from her hands.
Some things just seem bound.
And she opened her mouth, my sister, waiting for the feathering. She was too full up of love to resist, so I stroked her there, deep in the mouth, and then myself, and this is how we lost the sister. Desdemona was taking it, all to heart.
Tristan uncorked a new jar and reached inside, with wide open fingers. And when he pulled his hand back out, it was covered in thick green slime, like hairvaz, but living. Nanosham! Read about it in the Cat, but never seen it before. Those minuscule machines were dribbling from between his fingers.
"Watch this," he said. And with a broad and sexy sweep, he set those tiny machines working on his and Suze's hair. You could almost hear them feeding on the dirt and grease. Nanosham was a jelly base containing hundreds of baby computers. They turned dirt into data, processing hair clean, giving the people droidlocks; the ultimate crusty accessory.
"My darling," whispered Tristan to his love. "This is the sweetest pleasure."
Suze turned to me, holding out a clutch of the nanoes. "You want to try some?" she asked. Her eyes knew all my secrets. I felt her there, inside my body, and it was like she was caressing me. Maybe Suze was a shadowgirl. But no, it wasn't that, it felt different. Felt like she was becoming me.
"Young man's got no hair anyway," Tristan said. I couldn't answer. Couldn't even shake my head. All of the air had turned into smoke. Maybe the herb brew was giving me visions. I saw a thick snake of hair writhing between the heads of a man and a woman. And voices drifting through like mist patches, like waves of knowledge. I didn't know where I was…
The people were talking all around me, about me, but none of them made sense; all I could feel was Suze's body inside mine, touching all parts of me. I was getting a hard-on! What was this? The voices..
"You should."
"Little boy."
"Saves on shampoo."
"He's got no hair."
"Call that a haircut?"
"It's a crew job."
Who was saying what? And when? And to whom?
I felt a sudden, clammy hand stroking my short blond hair. Okay, it's short. Well who gives a fuck! Some of us look like shit with long hair. This the beautiful people will never understand. I'm just trying to look good, you know, my best. Some kind of best. And I shivered as I felt those fingers stroking my head. Get the fuck off me! Until I realised it was my own hand. It was my own hand stroking me; through the fog it had come, in order to stroke.
"Aw! Look at the baby."
"He's shaking."
"He's stroking his hair."
"He's nervous."
"He just doesn't know any more."
All those voices calling to me, through the mist…
The world was a haze. "What's she doing to me!" I shouted. "Stop her!"
And the voices falling to silence and all those eyes on me now, as Tristan told Suze to stop playing with me. Suze said that I had the dream within me, but I was well gone, and the feeling of bliss fading as Suze removed herself from my body.
What was that woman?
"Tell the story, Scribb." Beetle's voice.
The last drop fell away and I was myself again, with only a lonely space left in my soul, and a story to tell…
Last time I saw my sister, for real, she was sitting opposite me, across an apple jam-smeared table, with a feather in her mouth, expecting to fly. It was me, the brother, holding the feather there, turning it all around inside of her mouth. And then moving it to my own mouth, and Desdemona's eyes were glazed already by the Vurt, as I twisted the feather deep, to follow her down. Wherever she was going, I was going too. I really believed that.
We went down together, sister and brother, falling into Vurt, watching the credits roll; WELCOME TO ENGLISH VOODOO. EXPECT TO FEEL PLEASURE. KNOWLEDGE IS SEXY. EXPECT TO FEEL PAIN. KNOWLEDGE IS TORTURE.
Last time I saw my sister, close up, intimate, in the Vurt world, she was falling through a hole in a garden, clutched at by yellow weeds, cut by thorns, screaming my name out loud. A small yellow feather was fluttering at her lips.
I told her not to go through that door. It was a NO GO door. She went anyway.
I told her not to. She went anyway.
"I want to go there, Scribble. I want you to come with me. Will you come?" My sister's last real words to me, before the yellow feather kicked in, and she was falling, screaming my name.
Some of us die, not in the living world, but in the dream world. Amounts to the same thing. Death is always the same. There are some dreams you never wake up from.
Desdemona…
The room, in silence.
Later that day. Hours of smoke uncounted, but now the mist was drifting apart, revealing tiny fragments of the real world. These little glimpses stung the eyes like needles. I could no longer tell the tale; its telling was too much for me. I was shaking from the memories; Desdemona was aching in my heart.
Tristan broke the mood. "You found another feather in there?" he asked. "Is that what you're saying?"
I just nodded.
Through the tears I saw that Suze was sitting at a small table, consulting the oracle. She was shaking a can of bones around, and then dropping them onto the table. On the baize lay a spread of picture cards. She took note of which cards were touched by which shape of bone, and then threw the bones once more. Karli the robodog was licking my face, like she loved me, or something. Her tongue was long and wet, slick with nanoes. I swear I could feel them cleaning my face for me, cleaning all the salt tears away.
"It was a yellow feather?" Tristan asked.
"Yes. Small and yellow. Totally yellow," I managed. "It was beautiful."
"You want to tell how you found it? Or what happened?"
I didn't. Tristan just nodded. "I understand," he said.
Did he?
"I've been there," he added.
"What?"
"I've been inside English Voodoo."
"Tell me." I was desperate for knowledge.
Tristan looked over to where Suze was working the cards and the bones. Then he looked back at me. "You lost your sister there?" he asked.
"Yes."
"And got what in return?"
"I don't know what it is. Some kind of Vurt alien. We call him the Thing."
My mind dragged me back. Me waking up from the English Voodoo feather, covered by the weight of slime. The Thing writhing about on top of me. Me screaming at it, pushing with all my strength to get out from under, tears falling from my eyes, a cry rising in my throat. The sister gone forever, replaced by this lump of stuff.
Tristan nodded. The rates of exchange are complex. Nobody really knows how they work. Only that a constant balance has to be kept, between this world and the Vurt world. Both worlds must always contain the same worth.
"The Thing can't be as worthy as Des. Just can't be…"
"In his own world, that Thing is loved just as much. Everything adds up. The Game Cat tells you this. Believe me, the Game Cat knows."
"What do you know?" I asked.
Tristan looked over at Suze once more before answering. "Your sister took Curious Yellow."
Oh Christ!
Even the Beetle was aroused, out of Haze slumber. "Curious Yellow!" he shouted. "Holy shit! We're fucked, Scribble, baby!"
"Most probably," Tristan said. "Curious Yellow lives inside English Voodoo. It's a meta-feather."
Curious Yellow was often talked about, never seen, never felt. It was up there in the higher echelons, where the demons and the gods lived. Nobody pure could ever touch it, but Desdemona had touched it, tasted it, and now she was no more of this world, and the chances of getting her back were falling rapidly to zero. "What is Curious Yellow?" I asked. "How can I find it?"
"It can't be found, Scribble," Tristan replied. "It can only be earned. Or stolen."
"Desdemona's in there. I know she is!"
"Most probably she's dead."
His words cut me, but I wasn't giving up; "No. She talks to me. She's alive! She's in there, somewhere. She's calling to me. What can I do, Tristan?"
"Give up."
"Is that what you did?" I asked, and I could tell that I'd got to him. He'd lost somebody! He'd been there, in the Voodoo, lost somebody to the Curious. I could see the pain in his eyes, like a mirror.
"There's no hope," he answered. "Believe me. I've tried."
"So you won't help us?" the Beetle asked.
Tristan stared at Beetle. Then he turned away, towards Suze. He was running his hands through their joint hair, almost like he was testing just to see if she was still there, attached, safe. Suze picked up a card from the table, and held it out to me.
"This is your card, Scribble," she said.
"No. No, it's not."
"You just don't know it yet."
The first drifts of darkness showed through the flat's windows, and I was thinking about Bridget and the Thing, and how I should get back there, see how they were doing. And how everything was over, and another night without love.
"Well, cheers, mate," said the Beetle, with bitterness in his voice.
I guess the guy was looking out for me.
"Karli will see you home," said Tristan.
"You won't get scared without the pooch?" asked Beetle.
Tristan opened a door in the wall and I smelt turds and bad breath, meat and piss.
I looked into a dark place. The walls were covered in scratches and bites. In the shadows were darker shadows. Sleeping shadows, moving and breathing to a slow pulse. A low growling started up as Tristan turned on a sad little light and I saw the dogs there, a fur-lined duo. Great beasts. All plastic bones and synthetics.
"Robohounds," Tristan whispered. "Karli's mum and dad. Be careful. They bite." And I could see something in Tristan then, some trace of something dog-like.
"These are the beauties that keep us safe," he said.
"Christ!"
"Indeed. Bow down to the dogs."
Walking along a gangway, like on a tall ship, concrete ship, miles above the sea of glass. Me, Beetle, Mandy, Tristan, and Suze. Oh yeah, and the dog. Karli. Great slavering fur-metal beast, stretched out taut at the end of Suze's leash. Tristan carrying his gun, just for show really. Who's going to touch him? Because they know what would be coming then. And two robodogs left back in the flat, looking after the homestead. Night coming down. No one talking much, just walking the high-rise, hung up on private things. Each still strung out on wisps of herb, just enough to make the world seem kind of beautiful, even this place. The emptiness inside of me reflected in the glass fragments. So I was a thousand times sad, with each footstep. Sometimes even broken glass, cracked cement, sad lives; well they seem like the good dreams of bad things.
And I was thinking well perhaps all is well, and Brid and the Thing will be glad to greet us and we don't need this old crusty anyway. We were the Stash Riders, and Desdemona was one of us, and we would be back together, just as soon as I got my act together. Shit, man, it was easy! All I had to do was find some English Voodoo feather, go inside, taking the Thing with me. Find some meta-feather in there, some Curious Yellow, the most famous feather in the world, go inside. Find Desdemona in there, swap her back for the Thing, breaking all the known rules of Vurt, find our way back out. Shit, man, it was a piece of cake. Shit cake.
Now we were descending the stairwell.
"Sorry about not being much help," Tristan was saying to the Beetle.
The Beetle just shrugged.
"I'm just trying to warn you, my friend." There was an edge of sadness to Tristan's voice, but I wasn't paying much attention.
"You had a good night, though?" Suze asked.
"Great night," said the Beetle. Maybe he meant it.
We'd reached the bottom of the stairs, and we could smell fire in the air. Dogs were howling all through the Bottletown night.
"What's that?" asked Mandy.
"Some jokers," answered Suze. "Don't worry." "
"Happens every night," added Tristan.
"They love to burn things."
"They call themselves the Torchers," said Tristan. "Crazy tribe."
"Oh fuck." That was me.
"It'll be some waste-bin," said Suze.
But I knew. But I fucking knew it!
We turned the corner of a dead liftshaft, into the car-park, and there was our lovely Stashmobile in a shroud of flames. Burning. Burning.
"Shit!" The Beetle's voice. The van a forest of fire. No one could live through that. No one. Low-level shadowgirl and an alien from Vurt. Gone to the flames.
The five of us, and the dog, all of us transfixed. As the van burned, and the glass told the story a thousand times. Then I was running into the flames, scorching my hands on the door handle.
Oh shit. Oh the Thing and Brid!
And all the hope drifting away from my life, all the hope of an exchanging the Thing for the sister.
All the hopes of my life…
Karli had slipped her leash, she was running around the van, barking at the flames. Beetle had joined me, to help pull open the doors, but instead he was pulling me back, and I was suffering, the smoke bringing tears to my eyes, and the loss, all the losses, bringing tears.
Midnight. A drift of smoke. The van a pile of metal bones, blistered leatherette, melted rubber. My mind burnt. Just sitting there, on a vandalised bench, watching the van's corpse slowly fading. The stench of fire in my head, the glow of embers. A bunch of onlookers, Bottletown dwellers, come to watch the flames. Some of them were laughing. I was too far gone to care. The night was orange.
Tristan and Suze had rushed back to their flat for an extinguisher, but their hair had slowed them down, it just wasn't possible. And anyway, it didn't matter. There was nothing to save.
Karli Dog was nuzzling up to me, offering loads of comfort licks. I kept pushing her away, but she just kept on coming back anyway. So I let that long tongue carry on. It did some good, truth be known.
Tristan and Suze had come back with the foam-gun, but it was like pouring water on Hell. That van was going to burn, until everything was cinders. Until flesh was bone.
It just didn't matter anyway.
The Beetle had smeared his driving gloves with a full tube of Vaz. Then he'd gone up close to the dying flames, grabbed the back door handle, wrenched it loose. The door swung open, letting out a thick cloud of smoke. I'd watched the Beetle brave the smoke and the heat, thinking what a good guy he was. Then he turned away from the van, and walked towards me. His face was soot-blackened.
They're not there, Scribble."His words.
I'd just looked at him.
They're not there. It's empty."
Bottletown kids laughing and dancing in the orange night, and me just sitting on a broken down car-park bench, thinking about the world, and getting licked to fuck by a mixed-up pile of dog flesh and plastic, name of Karli.
Shards of glass under my feet, the colours of dreams.
In Bottletown, even our tears flicker like jewels.