Snowflakes sifted down on her through a sagging sieve of rafters, settling on her green hair when she threw back her hood. Running her hands over the walls, she read with her fingertips the texts carved in the old stone. Most were illegible, but there was one that she had grown fond of. It was an old fragment from before the Sixty Minute War, and Oenone was not sure what it meant, but there was something consoling about it.
Oenone knelt before the bare stone altar and bowed her head. She didn’t believe in him, this ancient god, but she had to talk to someone.
“Help me,” she whispered. “If you are there at all, give me strength. Give me courage. I’m so close to her. I could use the weapon now, if only I were brave enough. And it wouldn’t be murder, would it, to kill someone who is already dead? I would only be smashing a machine, a dangerous, destructive machine…”
She spoke softly, barely moving her lips. No human ear could hear her. But her prayer was heard, just the same. Crouched like a gargoyle on the chapel’s ruined steeple, the Stalker Grike listened carefully to every word.
“Have I the right to do it? It all seemed so clear before, but now I have seen her; how clever she is, and how strong… Maybe it would be murder. Or am I just making excuses for myself? Am I just looking for a reason not to do it so that I can live? Send me a sign, God, if you’re up there; show me what I should do…”
She waited, and Grike waited with her, but no sign came. The noisy, popular gods of the neighboring temples seemed to dish out comfort and counsel like advice columnists, but the god of this place was less scrutable; maybe he was asleep, or dead. Maybe he was busy with some better world off at the far end of the universe. Oenone Zero shook her head at her own foolishness and stood up, making ready to leave.
Grike climbed quickly down the chapel wall and waited in an alcove by the entrance, where perhaps a statue of the Christians’ nailed-up god had once hung. His suspicions had been right. Dr. Zero was a traitor, and although he had grown fond of her in his Stalkerish way, he knew that he must eliminate her before she could harm his mistress. His circuitry hummed and tingled at the prospect of a kill. She had taken his claws from him, but he was still strong, and merciless. One blow from his fist would end her easily.
A footstep on the threshold. The young woman stepped out of the chapel, pulling up her hood against the cold wind. She did not see Grike. She went past him and walked quickly away along the Street of Ten Thousand Deities, hurrying back to her quarters in the pagoda before the curfew bells were rung.
Grike lowered his fist, feeling startled and slightly foolish. What had happened to him? He was a Stalker, a killing machine, and yet, when his quarry’s eggshell skull had been in reach, he could not strike.
I must warn the Green Storm’s secret police, he thought, jumping down from the alcove and following Oenone out into the crowds on the street. He would let the Once-Borns deal with her themselves, down in their white-tiled torture rooms beneath the Jade Pagoda. But after a few strides he halted. He simply didn’t have it in him to betray Oenone Zero.
She has done this to me, he thought, remembering all those lonely night shifts in the Stalker Works. Somehow, the young surgeon-mechanic had built a barrier in his mind that made it impossible for him to harm her, or tell anyone what she was planning. He had been part of her plans all along. She had given the Stalker Fang a bodyguard who was not capable of guarding her.
He should have hated Dr. Zero for using him like that, but he did not have it in him to hate her either.
He barged through a festival procession outside the shrine of Jomo and climbed homeward through the darkness and the snow. He was not the puppet of Oenone Zero. He could not harm her, but he would keep her from harming his mistress. Somehow he would learn the nature of her plan, and put a stop to it.
Chapter 18
The naglfar
As soon as he had locked his friends and the children inside Gargle’s quarters, Caul sprinted back up the stairs to the chamber of screens. He was shuddering slightly, and half inclined to go back down and unlock the doors again. He kept telling himself that he hadn’t chosen Uncle over Freya and the others; he would find a way to stay true to both of them.
“First thing we must do,” said Uncle when Caul rejoined him, “is to get rid of those women. Bad luck, they’ll be. You’ll see.” He had filled his screens with images of the captives in the room below: big, grainy close-ups of Hester and Freya. He said, “They look very pretty, I’m sure, and no doubt you think they’re very sweet, but they’ll twist round and betray you, like my Anna did me all those years ago. That’s why I’ve always made it the rule that there ain’t no girls in Grimsby.”
Caul put down Hester’s gun. He felt stupid, standing there holding it. “But what about the girl who was aboard the Autolycus with Gargle?”
“Young Remora?” Uncle snatched the gun and stuffed it away inside his filthy clothes. “I know what you mean. Odd-looking lad. High-pitched voice. Long hair. Too much makeup. I had my doubts when Gargle first introduced me, but Gargle assured me he was a boy. A fine burglar. Poor Remora. I suppose he’s dead too?”
“Uncle, there are girls among those poor children we found downstairs. Lots of them are girls.”
“Girls? You’re sure?” Uncle started thumbing his remote control, hunting for close-ups of the children. Caul saw his friends on the screens look up nervously as crab-cams spidered around on the ceiling above them, jangling Remora’s mobiles. Uncle saw only grayish, face-shaped blurs. “Maybe Gargle’s kidnapping squads have grabbed a few girls by mistake,” he muttered grudgingly. “We’ll have to get rid of them, too, if we’re to make a new start. And we will make a new start, Caul, my boy. We’ll rebuild Grimsby, stronger and better than it ever was before, and you’ll be my right hand. You can move into Gargle’s pad and look after things for me like Gargle used to do.”
One of the banks of screens behind him suddenly died, leaving the room even more dimly lit than before. There was a smell of burned wiring, and when Caul went to investigate, he saw that water was flooding down the surfaces of the screens and pooling on the floor below. He touched some to his lips and tasted brine. Uncle Knows Best, he told himself, and he wanted to believe it because it would have been good l62 to go back to the old days, when he had been so certain about everything. Everybody had to believe in something better and greater than themselves. Tom and Freya had their gods, and Hester had Tom, and Caul had Uncle. He would not let Uncle down again, even though he was old, and blind, and confused; even though there was probably nothing that could save Grimsby from the sea.
But he would not let his friends drown with him.
“You look tired, Uncle,” he said gently. It was true. How long had the old man been alone in this room, staring at the treacherous message from Brighton on his walls of screens? Caul touched his hand. “You should get some rest, now that I’m here to keep an eye on things.”
Uncle’s head jerked round to stare at him, his eyes glittering with something of their old cunning. “You trying to trick me, Caul? That’s what Gargle did. ‘Have a nap, Uncle dear,’ he’d say. ‘Lie down for forty winks, Uncle.’ And when I woke up, some of my stuff would be missing, or another boy I’d trusted would be dead, and Gargle would be telling me it had been an accident…”