‘All the while, my father held me. The airship fell, and then it was just an empty sack, floating in the Thames. I was never afraid of air raids after that.’
‘It is a nice story, Comrade Ghost,’ Inez said. ‘But I am not a frightened child anymore.’ Her voice was harsh, but her soul-spark glowed gently.
‘Aren’t we all children, in the eyes of God? I may not share your faith, Inez. But I do believe that there is something greater than us, holding us in its arms, even while the city burns. And whoever He is, Pope Teilhard’s God or your Father Miaja’s or your own, He has a plan for us. He tests us, but it is only to make us face our fears. And He always forgives.’
Inez stopped the truck again. The ectophone circuit died. Without it, Peter felt the pull of Summerland in the kata direction and had to keep himself still with sheer will, like a swimmer treading water.
He watched her thought-forms. They fragmented into a swarm of fireflies and then merged together into one glowing green orb of certainty.
Then the circuit was back and Inez picked up the ectophone again. Through the static, it sounded like she had been crying. Yet there was a steely edge to her voice.
‘Comrade Ghost,’ she said, ‘I am not stupid. You are no friend of the Republic. But maybe you are God’s final test for me. So, I am going to test you in turn.
‘The Soviets give us weapons, but they come with a blood price. Their spies are in all the parties now. They say they hunt for Fifth Columnists but take everyone who is not Communist.
‘Answer me this: would your masters tolerate a Republic without Russians? Could we truly have peace in Spain?’
Peter hesitated.
‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘You have my word.’
It was almost true, like his story about the air raid. Only the way he had told it made it a lie. And deep in the core of his immortal being, Peter Bloom hated lies.
But just this once, it was worth it. Inez’s soul-spark grew bright with hope and its echo filled Peter with joy. This was the temptation the souls who Faded fell prey to. They spent all their vim huddling close to the living, until Summerland’s relentless pull washed away their memories and thoughts and only the bare, mindless luz, the soul-stone, remained.
‘Then there is something you should know,’ Inez said. ‘Two days ago, my Mateo comes to our flat, excited. It is like a fever. He has met with a man, a Georgian, and cannot stop talking about it. This man leads a network of underground Leftist dissidents, Russians, French, Germans, Poles, all over Europe. The Soviets hunt him everywhere he goes. He claims to have come to Spain to stop the war.’
‘And how is he planning to do that?’
‘He takes over the Government, rejects the Soviets and makes a deal with the British instead. Without British support, Franco will be defeated overnight. And this man has many supporters amongst the Anarchists, our POUM and the other parties already.’
‘Did Mateo say what the man’s name was?’
‘Iosif Dzhugashvili.’ She paused. ‘Although he prefers to be called Stalin.’
Peter betrayed nothing of his surprise and delight to Inez. They talked a little more on the roadside. Inez gave him a few other names: Dzhugashvili’s supporters in the Government parties, people her lover Mateo had influence with.
They arranged another meeting in a week’s time and said goodbye. Peter watched Inez’s soul-spark and the whirring light-wheel of the truck’s engine recede towards the fireworks of the front. Then he let go of the world of the living and its illusions and sank beneath their plane.
All of Earth became visible to his hypersight. Cities were dense constellations, joined by the spiderweb of telegraph cables. Births were blue confetti. Each death was a falling star of red. They traced crimson maps of war: the Spanish fronts and the campaigns in Africa. The sight brought back another childhood memory, the game called Small Wars he used to play with Mr West, toy armies arrayed against each other on the living room floor. Wasteful deaths, he reminded himself, all unnecessary, feeding a system just as meaningless as a child’s game and needing to be put away like all childish things.
And the name Inez had given him would help him to do just that.
He summoned the image of the SIS headquarters and held it in his mind. At the speed of thought, the aether carried him kata-wards, to Summerland.
The rest of the night was a blur. Rachel huddled in exhaustion in an adjoining suite. The hotel doctor, a small bald man with a reassuring manner, inspected Kulagin and proclaimed him dead.
Then he checked Rachel’s injuries while a sheepish-looking Allen stood nearby, nervously running his fingers through his thin, combed-over hair.
The final shot kept echoing in Rachel’s head. Could she have said something to stop Kulagin? She cursed herself for being clumsy with the sapgun, and for not insisting on having spirit Watchers around. Maybe they could have caught Kulagin before he Faded.… But no, Harker would never have agreed to putting any Summer Court operatives on the case.
Special Branch showed up, two polite but hard-faced officers in bowler hats. Rachel nursed a whiskey the major brought her and gave them a statement. The Branch men were confused by the absence of the victim’s spirit to interview, but after a call from the SIS liaison officer, they became much more polite.
Rachel was in a daze when the major draped his coat over her bathrobe and put her in a cab.
The streets of midnight London were blue-tinged and quiet. The rain had stopped and puddles gleamed in the street lights. Rachel drifted off to fitful sleep to the soft whirr of the car’s electric motor, cheek pressed against the cold glass of the window. The driver’s voice startled her awake.
‘’Ere we are, ma’am. Have a good night now.’
The cab stopped in front of the red-brick house she shared with Joe in St John’s Wood, near Regents Park. There was frost on the ground, and Rachel was shivering when she made it to the door. Their German maid, Gertrude, started fussing over her before she made it past the entrance hall, where Joe’s old spirit armour stood like a metallic guardsman.
‘Are you all right, Mrs White? You are looking terrible, if you don’t mind that I say.’
Rachel nodded. It hurt too much to talk.
Then Joe was there, in the purple Turkish-style smoking jacket she had always found ridiculous; short and rugby-solid Joe, with his weather-beaten face and thick, close-cropped chestnut hair and the permanent marks on his temples from an RAF spirit armour’s Crookes crown. He said nothing, just took her in his arms and held her tight.
For a moment, she was ready to love him all over again, just for that, and for his smell, for all his comforting imperfections, the lantern jaw that pressed against her shoulder, the tiny unkempt hairs in his ears. Then her breath grew short, his arms felt heavy around her and her heart started fluttering like a bird caught inside a house.
‘Joe, it is perfectly all right,’ she whispered, pulling away. ‘It was a dreadful night. But I am fine, really.’
‘I know you are,’ he said, taking her hand and squeezing it gently. ‘Come on, love. Let’s get you to bed.’
Allen would have called him, she knew. Until his recent leave of absence, Joe had been the Winter Court liaison officer for the Royal Aetheric Force. That was how they had met, at a staff meeting in Blenheim Palace. He had less Etonian polish and was less eager to impress than the Court spies. He did not drink, which in Court terms made him something like a fish without gills. The smile and a kinship born out of not quite belonging had led to a dinner, a dance and, two years ago, marriage.