“Forward,” he said, “into the future. On with a brand-new life.”
The bald man gave him a puzzled look, but said nothing, which was a relief. Jack didn’t like the man’s voice. It was high and reedy and grated on his nerves.
Jack heard running water and he pulled Cinderhouse across the street, to where they could see down past the towpath to the black surface of Regent’s Canal. The early-morning air was wet and clung to them like gossamer. Jack felt a cool mist on his face, but did not know whether it came up from the canal or down from the heavy grey sky.
In the predawn hour there was little traffic, but Jack knew that carriages would choke the street as soon as the first signs of approaching daylight began to show on the horizon. They needed to find a place to hide before the sun came up. And something to wear. There was no way they could pass unnoticed in the city without proper clothing.
He turned his back on the canal and Cinderhouse mirrored him, turning when he did, doing as he did, unless instructed otherwise. He appreciated how quick the bald man was to follow his orders.
A dog trotted by on the other side of the street, then stopped and looked at the two men. It wagged its tail hopefully and altered its course, heading slowly toward them, perhaps in search of food, but too wild to come directly to them. It circled, its ears laid back but its tail limply moving back and forth. Jack frowned and squinted down the length of the street to where a splinter of darkness had peeled away from the purple sky and was moving steadily toward them, growing as it came, fashioning itself into the shape of a large black omnibus, four horses out front, chuffing away toward the day’s first destination. Behind the bus came a wave of water pouring from the sky in a solid sheet, advancing as if pulled along by the steady horses, as if they were a harbinger of the weather. Thor’s chariot.
The dog, wild and stupid, thin and hungry, almost as thin as Jack, advanced toward the two men, unaware of the bus. Perhaps it was deaf, or perhaps the sound of the rain masked the rumbling of the wheels. Jack felt his heart begin to beat faster in anticipation. He felt Cinderhouse tense next to him.
The horses clopped past the two men. There was a solid thunk and a sharp yip of pain, and then the rain poured down and the bus disappeared into the grey, headed somewhere on the other side of the canal. Rain drove down and splashed up and settled down again in waves, running off the sides of the towpath and joining the black water below.
Jack stepped out into the street and looked for the dog. He found a spatter of blood, already being washed away, and a trail. He followed the red swath, which led him to a small pile of organs, a rope of intestines replacing the blood trail. Soon he found the dog itself, weak now and stopped by the curb on the other side of Cambridge Street, unable to step up out of the lane. It had pulled itself into a tiny bundle, shivering in the rain, ripped apart by the callous horses, by the wheels of the black bus. It looked up at Jack, and he knelt beside it on the bloody stones. He put out his hand and touched the dog’s snout. The tip of its tongue extended far enough to lick his fingers.
“We should put it out of its misery,” Cinderhouse said. “Show some mercy.”
Jack looked up, surprised to hear the bald man speak. He had not heard Cinderhouse follow him, had barely heard his voice over the sound of the rain.
“‘The quality of mercy is not strained,’” Jack said. “‘It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven.’”
“But it is raining.”
“Is it? I hadn’t noticed.” God, but the fly was a stupid creature. His company was quickly becoming tedious. “I mean to say that you cannot ask me to show mercy. It must be freely given or it means nothing.”
“I’ll do it then. The poor thing.”
Jack motioned for Cinderhouse to move back and he looked down at the dog again. It was panting and whining, staring up at Jack, its insides painted across the curb, blood welling from its ear. Jack smiled at it and ran the tips of his fingers over its wet muzzle again.
“Death is not a thing to be feared, little fly.” Jack spoke to Cinderhouse, but he looked at the dog. “We are larvae, all of us, awaiting transformation. We must be patient and we must understand that all change is painful.”
“Just bash its head with something.”
Jack looked up at Cinderhouse again. They were sharing a precious moment with the dog, a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and Cinderhouse was unable to appreciate what was happening. The bald man was pacing about uselessly, looking for a rock to use. Jack decided to ignore him. He turned his attention to the dog just in time to see that pleading expression leave its eyes. Its paws twitched one last time and it went still. He watched as it ceased being a dog and became something else entirely. He stopped breathing and his lips parted in awe. He felt he might pass out. This was the ultimate communication with the universe, and it had been denied him for so long.
Someone ought to pay for that.
He touched the dog again, but it no longer held any interest for him. It was already going cold. The rain beat against its blank eyeballs.
Cinderhouse shoved something at him, breaking his field of vision. A wooden rod, perhaps thrown off by a passing carriage.
“Use this,” Cinderhouse said.
Jack stood and stepped toward the rail. “You use it,” he said.
He kept his back to the bald man and listened, but could hear nothing over the sound of the rain. It was entirely possible that Cinderhouse would hit Jack with the rod and gain his freedom. Jack wouldn’t blame him at all. He would use the rod if he were in the bald man’s shoes. Or any shoes.
“It’s already dead.”
Jack turned and smiled. He reached out his hand and took the rod from Cinderhouse.
“You missed it,” Jack said.
“Poor thing.”
“Maybe. But we’re all going to die, aren’t we? We can’t all expect pity.”
“It didn’t have to die like that.”
“But it did have to die like that. It had no choice.”
“Not after the bus hit it.”
“The bus was simply a part of the process. The mechanism of transformation. We are surrounded every day by such machines. We are such machines.”
Cinderhouse stepped up to the rail as a carriage rolled by. Its wheels sluiced water up over the curb, over their toes. Jack watched the rain bounce off Cinderhouse’s smooth scalp as traffic began to pick up on the bridge. It was still dark, but the rain had already begun to ease into a gentle sprinkle. No carriages stopped for them, nobody wondered about the two men and the dead dog. Everyone had a place to go. Jack knew that if he gave the bald man enough time, he would speak again. Until then, he was content to stand and listen to the soft patter of rain on the canal.
“It was mostly children for me,” Cinderhouse said. “The ones I killed. I mean, as you say, transformed. The ones I transformed.”
“Ah, that is not something I can appreciate. Not children.”
“But surely you. .”
“Never a child. Children are already in the midst of transformation. They’re not yet ripe, are they?”
“Ripe?”