‘Yes. I mean, that is, I’ve never seen one before but—’
‘This means I can do as I please. Order your men not to interfere with me in any way, understand?’
‘Look, you can’t speak to me like that! I will need to check this.’
Du Bois sighed: the whole point of the warrant card was to avoid situations like this. He pulled out his phone and hit speed dial.
Hamad had wanted to run. He really had. Nightmare had not. Nightmare wanted to stay. He heard the door battered open. Hamad thought about the police officers thundering up the stairs. Their families, their lives, the sum of their experiences up to this moment. Were they loved? Did they have children? Nightmare howled in his head. He was not done killing, it seemed. Not that it mattered any more.
He felt the screen snagged, attacked, changed.
The godsware implants were two slits on his forehead. He opened his eyes. All of them. The Marduk implant showed him the ways through. They made a lie of matter. He fell back through the floor.
Hamad emerged through the ceiling above the stairway halfway through a graceful somersault and landed among the armed police officers on the cramped stairway. He pushed gun barrels away from him, the slightest touch of hand and foot sending the officers tumbling down the stairs. He seemed to flow among them, moving to where they thought him least likely to be. Toying with probability.
Hamad crouched low, his leg kicking out behind him. Gentle Sleep cut through a heavy boot like it did not exist. A nearly sentient poison coursed into the firearms-officer’s body. He died happy as if in the middle of a pleasant dream.
Nightmare just had to open the cheek of one of the officers and the screaming began. There was panic as the terror-stricken officer tried to flee and shoot his way out of his worst nightmare. The black blade drew blood again and again.
Du Bois shook his head, the sound of screaming and gunfire playing in stereo for him. He could hear it clearly echoing down the street and through the radio tap. Appleby had gone white as he listened to his men being murdered.
‘It’s me. I’m at King’s Cross. I’m being obstructed.’ Du Bois offered Appleby the phone. ‘It’s the Home Secretary. He thinks you’re a cunt as well.’ Appleby stared at the phone like he was being handed dog shit.
Du Bois was sprinting towards the house. Knowing that it was too late. He drew the accurised .45, ejected the magazine and replaced it with a new magazine of ammunition that probably cost more than any one of the properties lining the street.
He ran up the steps and into the house. He saw the first body lying in a contorted heap halfway down the stairs. The police officer’s face was a rictus of agony and terror.
Du Bois took a moment to compose himself. His skill set and experience aside, he was facing someone who could appear from anywhere armed with ancient and potent weapons. Still, he was pretty sure that the person he was hunting was long gone. He could already feel the blood-screen collapsing in the local area, no longer multiplying like bacteria, no longer putting up a fight as his own screen consumed it. Du Bois tried desperately to spoof the blood-screen with disguised tracking elements of his own.
Du Bois left the house. He had been right: whoever had done this was long gone. A number of the armed response team had been killed. They had either died blissfully or in pain and fear. The latter outweighed the former. Du Bois knew he should not be surprised. After all, whoever had done this could steal souls and murder hope itself.
Du Bois looked around for someone to blame. He found Appleby quickly and strode towards him. Appleby was sitting on some steps leading to one of the other terraced houses. He was gazing down at the Euston Road unseeing. He looked broken.
‘Was “Don’t enter the building under any circumstances” somehow not emphatic enough for you?’
Appleby looked up, appalled that someone would say something like that at a time like this, further angering du Bois, who saw it as self-pity.
One of Appleby’s subordinates moved towards du Bois, arm outstretched to intercept him. Du Bois grabbed the man’s hand, locked it and then elbowed him in the face, easily knocking him to the ground.
‘Stay down there,’ du Bois spat as he reached Appleby and leaned down. There were more officers running towards him. ‘Tell me—’
‘Sir!’ an armed police officer shouted at him. ‘Get away from the chief inspector.’
Du Bois turned on her. ‘Don’t make me kill you just for some peace and quiet.’ He turned back to Appleby. It was the waste that bothered him the most. ‘Tell me. How does a mental subnormal, incapable of understanding the most elementary of missives, rise to such a high position in the Met?’ Appleby flinched. ‘Are you a Mason or something?’ Appleby turned to look at him, appalled. Shock was rapidly being replaced by anger.
‘I lost men to—’
Du Bois grabbed him, pulling his face closer.
‘Listen to me, you seeping cock-sore. You didn’t fucking lose them; you killed them. You killed them because you are a moron, because you are too fucking stupid and greedy to sit back and think, Hmm, perhaps this position of power and responsibility is too much for my tiny mind to handle. Perhaps I won’t risk murdering people because I’m a simpering lightweight vastly out of my depth and lacking the common sense that God gave shrubbery!’
Du Bois felt a degree of pride as he saw tears form in Appleby’s eyes. He worried that people like Appleby would find ways to rationalise what they had done. Du Bois wanted to drive home the man’s culpability, hopefully help break him so he would not manoeuvre himself into a position of responsibility and influence again. In du Bois’s mind, Appleby’s stupidity made him dangerous. Surrounded by nervous police officers, du Bois stared at the man with cold blue eyes. He wanted to see the breaking point.
Beth knew she was ugly. She knew because the cell-block mums had not tried to rape her. She stared at the hated reflection in the small mirror. She knew she was too squat, too brutish, had too little femininity for the rest of the world. No matter how much you try and get away from other people’s expectations, reject them utterly, you still ended up feeling their looks, judging yourself through their eyes. Still, she had broken enough mirrors and going down for manslaughter had been her seven years of bad luck, let out early for good behaviour. The only thing she did like was the Celtic tattoo creeping up from her neck. That and, mannish or not, she had kept in good shape. Though she wondered if they would let her work on the doors again with her record. She had been working that night after all.
The slamming of a cell door echoed through the prison. She hated that sound. It had become the soundtrack of her life. The first time she had heard it was when she had known that her whole wide world had been shrunk to four ugly institutional walls. Soon she would not have to listen to it any more.
Not very much money, an old-fashioned cassette Walkman – she was almost touched that they had removed the batteries, though she doubted they would have much charge – charity-shop shirt and tie, the para-boots and her pride and joy, her leather jacket. The interlocking knotwork pattern painted on the back. It was a copy of the cover of her favourite album from her favourite band. It was the outside world.
The sound of the outside door closing behind her for the last time. Beth knew that the long inhalation was a cliché. It didn’t matter. Out here the air didn’t smell of hundreds of dangerous women in close proximity.
She had known they would not be there, but some part of her had still hoped. She was pleasantly surprised that the batteries still had some charge and tinny music came out of the cheap headphones. Beth zipped up her jacket and started walking. It was going to be a long walk.