Books of Blood Vol 2

As they turned into Whitehall Frank McCloud glanced confidentially over his shoulder and Hell took him.

It was sudden: it was simple.

He stumbled, an icy hand in his chest crushing the life out of him. Joel slowed as he approached the man. His face was purple: his lips foamy.

"McCloud," he said, and stopped to stare in his great rival's thin face.

McCloud looked up at him from behind a veil of smoke that had turned his grey eyes ochre. Joel reached down to help him.

"Don't touch me," McCloud growled. The filament vessels in his eyes bulged and bled.

"Cramp?" asked Joel. "Is it cramp?"

"Run, you bastard, run," McCloud was saying at him, as the hand in his i

"What is it?"

"Run for your life!"

The words weren't requests but imperatives.

Run.

Not for gold or glory. Just to live.

Joel glanced up, suddenly aware that there was some huge-headed thing at his back, cold breath on his neck.

He picked up his heels and ran.

"— Well, things aren't going so well for the ru

McCloud was dead by the time they put him in the ambulance, and putrefied by the following morning.

Joel ran. Jesus, did he run. The sun had become ferocious in his face, washing the colour out of the cheering crowds, out of the faces, out of the flags. Everything was one sheet of noise, drained of humanity.

Joel knew the feeling that was coming over him, the sense of dislocation that accompanied fatigue and over-oxygenation. He was ru

And it wasn't so bad, this being alone. Songs began to fill his head: snatches of hymns, sweet phrases from love songs, dirty rhymes. His self idled, and his dream-mind, u

Ahead, washed by the same white rain of light, was Voight. That was the enemy, that was the thing to be surpassed. Voight, with his shining crucifix rocking in the sun. He could do it, as long as he didn't look, as long as he didn't look —Behind him.

Burgess opened the door of the Mercedes and climbed in. Time had been wasted: valuable time. He should be at the Houses of Parliament, at the finishing line, ready to welcome the ru

His hands were clammy with excitement, and his pin­stripe suit smelt of the goat-skin coat he was obliged to wear in the room. Still, nobody would notice; and even if they did what English-man would be so impolite to mention that he smelt goaty?

He hated the Lower Chamber, the perpetual ice, that damn yawning hole with its distant sound of loss. But all that was over now. He'd made his oblations, he'd shown his utter and ceaseless adoration of the pit; now it was time to reap the rewards.

As they drove, he thought of his many sacrifices to ambition. At first, minor stuff: kittens and cockerels. Later, he was to discover how ridiculous they thought such gestures were. But at the begi

The cauterized stumps of his thumbs ached, as they often did when he was nervous. Idly, he sucked on one.

"— Well We're now in the closing stages of what really has been one hell of a race, eh, Jim?"

"Oh yes, It's really been a revelation, hasn't it? Voight is really the outsider of the field; and here he is streaking away from the competition without much effort. Of course, Jones made the unselfish gesture of checking with Frank McCloud that he was indeed all right after that bad fall of his, and that put him behind."

"It's lost the race for Jones really, hasn't it?"

"I think that's right. I think it lost the race for him."

"This is a charity race, of course."

"Absolutely. And in a situation like this it's not whether you win or lose —"

"It's how you play the game."

"Right."

"Right."

"Well they're both in sight of the Houses of Parliament now as they come round the bend of Whitehall. And the crowds are cheering their boy on, but I really think it's a lost cause —"

"Mind you, he brought something special out of the bag in Sweden."

"He did. He did."

"Maybe he'll do it again."

Joel ran, and the gap between himself and Voight was begi

There was a slowing there. The man was not as fast as he had been. An uneve

He could take him. With courage, he could take him.

And Kinderman. He'd forgotten about Kinderman. Without thinking, Joel glanced over his shoulder and looked behind him.

Kinderman was way back, still keeping his steady marathon ru

He averted his eyes and stared ahead, cursing his stupidity.

He was gaining on Voight with every pace. The man was really ru

But the sight at his back wouldn't leave his head.

"Don't look back": McCloud's words. Too late, he'd done it. Better to know then who this phantom was.

He looked again.

At first he saw nothing, just Kinderman jogging along. And then the ghost ru

It was no ru

"Don't look back."

Its mouth, if mouth it was, was open. Breath so cold it made Joel gasp, swirled around him. That was why Loyer had muttered prayers as he ran. Much good it had done him; death had come anyway.

Joel looked away, not caring to see Hell so close, trying to ignore the sudden weakness in his knees.

Now Voight, too, was glancing behind him. The look on his face was dark and uneasy: and Joel knew somehow that he belonged to Hell, that the shadow behind him was Voight's master.

"Voight. Voight. Voight. Voight—" Joel expelled the word with every stride.

Voight heard his name being spoken.

"Black bastard," he said aloud.

Joel's stride lengthened a little. He was within two metres of Hell's ru

"Look....ehind... You," said Voight.

"I see it."

"It's... come... for... you."

The words were mere melodrama: two-dimensional. He was master of his body wasn't he? And he was not afraid of darkness, he was painted in it. Wasn't that what made him less than human as far as so many people were concerned? Or more, more than human; bloodier, sweatier, fleshier. More arm, more leg, more head. More strength, more appetite. What could Hell do? Eat him? He'd taste foul on the palate. Freeze him? He was too hot-blooded, too fast, too living.