‘Station? Contact at – yah, goin’ after him now!’
‘Watch it, watch it – he’s a big one – keep it friendly – hey, feller!’
I started and jumped back as doors slammed hollowly.
‘Jesus, what’s that? Machete?’ I looked down. Instinctively I’d half-drawn the sword, and it spat back the blue light like icy fire.
‘Hallo? Suspect is armed, repeat armed –’
‘Hey feller! We jes’ wanna word, nobody’s goin’get hurt! So you put that stickah ‘way now, hear?’
I backed off, kept on backing. My head was horribly clear all of a sudden. There was no way I’d get to the docks from a police cell – or a madhouse. I could see the policeman now, a burly middleaged black man with fierce grizzled whiskers; he was trying to sound reassuring, but his fat hand hovered near the unclipped flap of his holster. The other one would be covering him from the car, no doubt. I looked around desperately, and again it was darkness and shade that caught my eye; across the road a gap opened between the houses, its sagging wire fence overhung by spreading trees. I edged back some more, then relaxed a little, bowed my head, heard the fat man’s sigh of relief – and swept the sword right out of its scabbard in a hissing arc. I wasn’t as well in control of it as I thought; it must have nearly parted those whiskers. He leaped backward with a startled yell, tripped over a hydrant and sprawled on his back. That opened my way for a flying leap, right over him, onto the bonnet of the squad car and out into the road, luckily empty. I reached the grass strip in a couple of bounds, narrowly stopped myself running out into the path of a highly decorated van, then ran anyway because a bullet had just gone whistling past. The van screeched around in a tyrestripping arc, horn blaring, onto the grass between me and the squad car. I reached the fence, vaulted over it and landed ankle-deep in litter-strewn grass before I realized that – in a manner of speaking – I wasn’t alone.
If I’d known more about the city I might have been less surprised at landing in a graveyard – and at the aspect of it, vast stretches of huge and imposing tombs, vandalized, neglected and overgrown. Right now they didn’t worry me in the least. This ruined city of the dead looked like the safest place to hide I could imagine. I went belting off among the graves like someone desperate to get back to his own. Some way behind me I heard the sound of somebody else trying to vault the fence, and failing dismally. My conscience shrivelled again; I’d nothing at all against those cops. I didn’t like doing this one bit – but no way were they going to stop me now.
I wove and dodged among the ranks of the dead, ducking from path to path, turning and turning till I lost track of time and direction. Now and again I slipped in among half-fallen models of Greek and Roman temples, gasping for breath in the heavy air, to listen for pursuit till I was sure there wasn’t any. Nothing stirred, not even a breath of wind. I didn’t blame them for giving up; you could have played hide-and-seek all night in that place, and the weed-grown gravel paths didn’t show tracks. Come to think of it, I wasn’t too sure which way I’d come myself. I looked around. Tombs, tombs, tombs as far as I could see, a skyline of crosses and wreaths and sculpted angels and other less probable things. Nothing stirred, not even a breath of wind in this leaden air; no sign that there was a city of the living anywhere out there. It gave the cemetery a timeless, suspended feeling. I must be right in the heart of the place. At least it was pretty much flat. I set out, heading what I guessed was away from the way I’d come in. Nothing to do but walk till I hit a wall –
I shivered suddenly, though the night was warm. The chill that shot through me was so acute it was like an electric shock. I’d brushed against something, not grass, not stone –
I almost laughed. It was just a little scarecrow, no higher than my waist, a battered old hat and weather-bleached tailcoat hung on crossed poles, bulked out by the weeds that had grown up beneath it. Almost laughed; but the chill had caught my breath too strongly, and my heart was thudding wildly. I looked wildly around, but there was nothing else, nothing except a warm wind stirring the trees; nothing different about this particular little knot of tombs. Broken down, broken into, sprayed with graffitti like the rest; unusual, though, these whorls and spirals and scratchy circles. As if they’d been put on with luminous paint, or attacked by some kind of decay. I’d seen something like them somewhere before, but not so clear. Here, in the deepest darkness, a faint green phosphoresence seemed to hang around them – not so faint, either. Once your eyes got used to it you could practically see by it …
A faint scraping scrabble startled me. I whirled around with visions of some vengeful and trigger – happy cop creeping up on me; but this was too small for that. Beneath one defaced stone the rich grass was twitching; some little animal I’d disturbed, then. What did they have here? Possums, garter snakes … I bent down to look.
Then I sprang back with a shriek that must have split the air across the cemetery. The scrawled mandala – shape on the stone blazed out fire – bright, and against it waved the hand that had thrust out of the earth, right at my face. The earth heaved under me, almost tipping me onto it, but I kept my balance, staggering, and turned to run. The gravel swelled and hummocked in front of me as if some huge worm – thing tunnelled beneath, throwing me back. I fell; the sword in one hand, I flung out the other to catch myself and dug my fingers into the gravel to steady me – then snatched them away, barely in time. Beneath the pebbles something shut with a click, like a fish snapping after a fly. The ground convulsed again. Bushes wavered wildly and fell, first one headstone then another tipped over with a flat crump, others shuddered and crumbled. The simpering head of a marble angel toppled, bounced and rolled almost to my feet. All around me the soil was lifting, fingers clawing, an arm thrusting upward like a plant growing in a stop – motion film …
And behind me there was a nasty little tittering sound.
I spun around. The little scarecrow had grown as well, until it towered over me, a huge thin figure barring my passage – and lifting one of those empty sleeves. Weeds rustled within it, weeds with long downreaching roots, weeds grown fat on rich food. A single finger, skinny and gnarled – twig or bone? – crooked at my face. The ancient hat tilted slightly, and a sound rustled at my ears, hissing and tickling like a close-up whisper – only in both ears at once. A voice. Like dead leaves one minute, the next liquid, gargling, horrible.
It was almost worse to realize it made sense. It was some kind of bastard French or pidgin dialect, like none I’d ever heard, thickly accented; but I could understand. Telling me to bow down and worship –
Whose kingdom? Homage to who? I couldn’t move. Sheer panic, like a gust from an open window, whipped up my thoughts and scattered them every which way. With a sudden squeaky rustle the finger jabbed out, right into the centre of my forehead. It struck the sweatband. Something like a high-voltage spark or a soundless explosion went off, a glare of light behind my eyes instead of in front.
‘Like hell!’ I bayed. Too scared to think. I slashed out. It was with luck and instinct and not much else that I used my swordhand. It was like cutting a hedge. The derby flew up, an end of stick went whipping away and the ragged tailcoat collapsed in a boneless flurry of arms. Thick stalks whipped free, oozing stinking sap; pollen sprayed into my face like ancient gravedust and set me sneezing. Something – briarstems, maybe – clawed at my ankles. I yelled again, leaped free of them and bolted for my life – or maybe something more. Right now that cop with his gun would have been the sweetest sight I could imagine – or, failing that, some real light. There almost seemed to be some, there ahead of me; a warm hazy glow, high above the shadows of the grave, infinitely warm and secure-looking. I hared off that way, fast as I could. Whatever it was, right then I wanted it, badly. I was sacred it would just slip away and leave me to the darkness rustling at my heels.