“The bastard is I never use familiars.” He shook his head, repeatedly. “It was just crap luck. It was just crap, crap luck, the timing.”
WATI MOVED IN ELDRITCH LEAPFROGGING, STATUE TO STATUE, figure to figurine, consciousness momentarily in each. Just long enough to see through the stone eyes in a horse rider in a park; wooden eyes on a Jesus outside a church; plastic eyes in a discarded clothes model; taking bearings, feeling to the limits of his range, some scores of metres, briefly considering each potential figure within his arc, choosing the most suitable according to criteria, transferring his thinks-node into that next human-made head.
He met Dane and Billy in the café in the back streets near Holborn, where for years the plaster mannequin of a fat chef had held up fingers in an “O” meaning delicious right next to an outside table, so where, if Dane and Billy put up with the chill, huddling over coffees, Wati could en-statue close enough to converse with them. They hunkered against the cold and the possibility of being seen. Dane looked repeatedly around them.
“Like I say, Dane, this better be good,” the Wati-chef said through a motionless openmouthed smile. Its accent remained-Cockney plus the New Kingdom?-but the voice was choky, now, and clogged-sounding.
“Wati, this is Billy,” said Dane. Billy greeted the statue. He greeted a statue and disguised his awe. “He’s what this is all about.” Dane cleared his throat. “You can feel it, right, Wati? The sky, the air, all this shit. History ain’t working. Something’s coming up. That’s what this is about. I bet you can feel it. Between statues.”
There was silence. “Maybe,” said Wati. Was it gusting he sensed? Billy wondered. A dislocation? Something foreboding in that inter-effigial unspace? “Maybe.”
“Alright. Well then. You heard… the kraken got took?”
“’Course I did. The angels can’t shut up about it. I even went to the museum,” Wati said. No lack there of the bodies in which he could be. He could rush around the interior of the hall in a whirlwind of entities, skimming, skipping from animal to stone animal. “The phylax is screaming in the corridors. It’s walking, you know. It’s looking for something, it’s on a trail. You can hear it at night.”
“What’s this?” Billy said.
“The angels of memory,” Dane said.
“What are…?” said Billy, then stopped at Dane’s shaken head. Alright, he thought, we’ll get back to that.
“It’s all screwed up,” Wati said.
“It is,” Dane said. “We need to find the kraken, Wati. No one knows who took it. I thought it was the Tattoo, but then… He took Billy. Was going to do him. And the way he was talking… Most people think it was us.” He paused. “The church. But it weren’t. They ain’t even looking for it. When the kraken went, this thing underneath it all started rising.”
“Talk to me about scabbing, Dane,” Wati said. “Do I need to talk to your Teuthex about this?”
“No!” Dane shouted. People looked. He slid down, spoke quietly again. “You can’t. Can’t tell them where I am. I’m out, Wati.” He looked into the statue’s unmoving face. “Shunned.”
The plaster of the chef, unchanging, took on shock. “Oh my gods, Dane,” Wati said at last. “I heard something, someone said something, I thought it was garbled bullshit, though…”
“They’re not going to do anything,” Dane said. “Nothing. I needed help, Wati, and I needed it fast. They were going to kill Billy. And whoever’s took it’s doing something with the kraken that’s bringing up this badness. That’s when it started. That’s the only reason I did what I did. You know me. I’ll do whatever I have to to fix this. What I’m saying is I’m sorry.”
DANE TOLD WATI THE STORY. “IT WAS BAD ENOUGH WHEN THIS LOT brought it up, put it in their tank.” Billy was shocked at the anger with which Dane stared at him, suddenly. He had never seen that before. I thought you liked the tank, he thought. The Teuthex said… “But since it’s gone it’s got worse. We have to find it. Billy knows things. I needed to get him out. Wati, it was Goss and Subby.”
There was a long silence. “I heard that,” the statue said. “Someone said he was back. I didn’t know if it was true.”
“Goss and Subby are back,” Dane said. “And they’re working for the Tattoo. They’re on the move. They’re doing their work. They were taking Billy to the workshop.”
“Who is he? Who are you?” Wati said to Billy. “Why are they after you?”
“I’m no one,” Billy said. He saw himself talking to a plastic or plaster pizza man. Could almost have smiled.
“It was him who preserved the kraken,” Dane said. “Put it behind glass.”
“I’m no one,” Billy said. “Up until a couple of days ago I…” How to even start.
“He likes to say he’s no one,” Dane said. “Tattoo and Goss and Subby don’t think so. He knows things.”
There was quiet for seconds. Billy played with his coffee.
“A squirrel, though?” Wati said.
Dane stared at the frozen delighted face of the chef, risked a snorting laugh. “I was desperate, bro,” he said.
“You couldn’t have got, like, an adder or a jackdaw or something?”
“I was looking for a part-timer,” Dane said. “All the best familiars are union, I didn’t have much choice. You should be pleased. You’re solid. I had to go with whatever dregs were around.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”
“I’m sorry. I was desperate. I shouldn’t have done it. I should’ve asked.”
“Yeah you should,” said Wati. Dane breathed out. “You only get one fuckup like that. And that only because I known you since time.” Dane nodded. “Why did you come see me?” Wati said. “You didn’t just come to apologise, did you?”
“Not only that,” said Dane.
“Cheeky bugger,” said Wati. “You’re going to ask for help.” He started to laugh, but Dane interrupted.
“Yeah,” he said without humour. “You know what, I am, and I ain’t going to apologise. I do need your help. We do. And I don’t just mean me and Billy, I mean everyone. If we don’t find the god, whatever’s coming’s going to get here. Someone’s doing something with that kraken they really shouldn’t oughter.”
“We’re out, Dane,” Wati said. “What do you even want from me?”
“I understand,” Dane said. “But you have to understand too. Whatever it is… If we don’t stop it it won’t matter if you win your strike. I’m not saying call it off. I would never tell you that. I’m saying you can’t afford to ignore this. We have to find God. We ain’t the only ones looking. The longer it’s out there it’s meaning more and more, and that means it’s more and more powerful. So more and more people are after it. Imagine if Tattoo gets his hands on it.” On the corpse, corpus, of an emergent baby god, traveller from below to above.”
“What’s your plan?” Wati said.
Dane brought out his list. “I reckon this is all the people in London could port something as big as the kraken. We can track down who got it out.”
“Hold it up,” Wati said. Dane, making sure he was not watched, held the list in the statue’s eyeline. “There’s, what… twenty people here?” Wati said.
“Twenty-three.”
“Going to take you a while.” Dane said nothing. “Have you got a copy of that? Wait.”
There was a gust, a palpable leaving. Dane began to smile. After a minute a sparrow flew down and landed on Billy’s hand. He started. Even his jump did not dislodge the bird. It looked him and Dane up and down.