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“You are unfit to live, sir. I shall relish your fall, for it will be a great one from the height of your arrogance.”
“Don’t tell me you never tried her out? That Louise? She was with you for weeks and weeks. All that time. You must have.” Qui
“Your judgements have neither value nor relevance to me.”
“Oh yeah? There’s one judgement I might interest you in. I’m go
“You will have to find her first.”
“Oh I will. Believe it. Even if the morons I’ve got out there now don’t do it, His army will bring her to me. And then that last little thread of defiance you treasure will snap. You’ll scream and plead and cry, and curse your shitty false Lord for his divine inaction.”
“The Lord moves in mysterious ways His wonders to perform. The age of miracles may be past, but His messengers still walk amongst us. You will fail. It is written.”
“Bollocks. There are no messengers. And I’m busy burning the book it’s written in. It’s my Lord who comes, not yours. And He doesn’t move mysteriously. God’s Brother is very blunt, as you’re going to find out. Unless I spare you.”
“I would never be sullied by your mercy, sir.”
“No? Then how about sparing Louise? Join us. Get on the wi
Fletcher gave a short, bitter laugh.
“I mean it,” Qui
“I apologize, for I am mistaken. I had thought you dangerous. I see now you are merely small. Our Lord Jesus was offered the kingdoms of the world, and refused. I believe I can resist coveting another man’s wife and some fine living. Have you not yet learned that in this wretched state we can create anything we desire for ourselves? You can offer nothing of any value; you may only rain down empty threats.”
“Empty!” Qui
“Day follows night, as it is now and always will be. Amen.”
Qui
“I do not know, sir.”
“You were shooting it about pretty freely before. Was it meant for me? Is that why the supercops let you down here? Were you trying to find me for them?” Qui
Frenkel stepped forwards and dumped Billy-Joe’s body on the altar next to Fletcher. The young man’s head flopped about. His eyes were open, unfocused, and he was still breathing.
“We found him like this down at the bottom of the Archway tower. The big black dude managed to shoot him with one of these gadgets before my troops took him out. Now, I can understand a weapon that forces possessors out of their host body. Every fucking scientist in the Confederation must be working on that right now. But this is a little more powerful, isn’t it? Billy-Joe wasn’t a possessed, but it still kicked his soul’s ass out of there.” Qui
Fletcher’s face became a mask of stubborn determination.
“Ah,” Qui
“How about that?” Qui
The tenement on Halton Road consisted of three low-cost apartment towers intended for the poor and the elderly. A third of the residents still fell into that category, the rest worked in the black cash economy or lived off the dole, spending their days stimmed out on cheap activant programs and home-synthesised drugs. There were no other amenities for them. The ground between the twenty-storey towers was a concrete yard walled in by rows of small garages. Fading white lines marked out baseball and football pitches, though the baskets and goal posts had been torn out of the ground decades ago. Despite its classical urban erosion demeanour, it was a perfect site for The Disco At The End Of The World.
Andy had been dancing on the worn concrete since sundown, embracing the communal madness. Out of all London’s residents, the type that lived in the tenement had the least to lose when the possessed came marching out of the darkness. So . . . sod it. If you are absolutely going to get captured by the evil dead/tortured/your body consumed by ghouls/live the rest of eternity as a zombie slave, you might as well have one last decent party before it happens.
The underground trax jammers had set up their ageing speaker stacks as twilight fell. When the sun left the sky, out came the pounding rhythm to rattle the windows and sneer an utterly worthless defiance at the arcology’s new overlords. Everyone had dressed for it. That’s what Andy loved. Disco divas in their sequi
Andy wriggled his hips, and waved his hands, and generally boogied on down like he’d never done before. No need to be self-conscious now, there wouldn’t be a tomorrow morning for people to laugh at him and his coordination. He swigged from the bottles passed round. He snogged a couple of girls. He sang along at the top of his voice. He made up his own cool moves. He cheered and laughed and wanted to know why the hell he’d wasted his life.
And then there she was. Louise, standing in front of him. Clothes wet and dishevelled. Her beautiful face deathly serious.
She’d generated her own space among the exuberant dancers. People instinctively avoided her, knowing that whatever private hell she was in they didn’t want any part of it.
Her lips parted, shouting something at him.
“What?” he yelled back. The music was incredibly loud.
She mouthed: Help.
He took her hand and led her across the yard. Through the ring of elderly people around the edge of the dancing throng, happily clapping along and doing a small shuffle. Into the brick-wall lobby, and up the stone stairs to his flat.
When the door shut behind them, Andy thought he was dreaming, because Louise was in his flat. Louise! On the last night of existence, they were together.
His window looked out over the street not the yard, so the music was muted down to a constant bass drumming. He reached for a lightstick; the grid power supply had failed early that morning.
“Don’t,” Louise said.