“What? How is it possible?”
“It was summoned here but some clever bastard trapped it.”
“Trapped it? What do you mean — trapped it?”
“It was chained by the Directorate. By one of Dedlock’s men.”
“Good God. Is the man dead now?”
“As good as.” Streater smirked. “Leviathan’s here, chief. Close by. In the city somewhere, imprisoned. But don’t stress. It’s all in hand. We’re pretty confident that his rescue’s only a matter of days away.”
“This can’t be right. This feels so wrong. Good God, Streater — my own family-”
“Relax,” Streater purred. “Chill out.”
“Why did Mother want you to tell me all this?”
“She wants you to be ready, chief. For Leviathan. For your ascension to the throne. And before that, for something she wants you to do. A necessary chore.”
The prince was still sweating and had begun to shiver and tremble like a street-corner alcoholic. “I’m gasping for a drink. Is there any more tea? Might I have some more tea before we finish?”
The prince didn’t spot it but a tiny smile of triumph flickered on Streater’s lips. “Why not?” he cooed. “A little drop can’t hurt.”
Chapter 16
Miss Morning lived with a monster.
Even so, it was immediately clear that she was also lonely. Her house, a large four-bedroomed place in the snooty precincts of South Kensington, whilst grimily bohemian, lacked the imprint of any life but hers. Her fridge, when I caught a glimpse of its contents, was stockpiled with ready meals, instant snacks and suppers for one.
More than this, I scarcely recognized her when she came to the door, dressed in a flowing gray smock, her hair worn long and pre-Raphaelite around her shoulders, her hands covered in what looked like clay.
Once I had stepped inside and we were walking through to the heart of her home, I blurted out: “You seem different.”
Her only answer was a smile, like a mother to a son who’s just worked out the truth about Father Christmas. We walked down a chilly hallway, through her sparse kitchen and into a large light-filled extension which jutted from the rear of the building. Formed entirely of glass, it felt pleasantly warm, like a giant greenhouse or the tropical rooms at Kew — comforting and almost homely, or at least it seemed so until I saw the beast.
The room was filled with clay sculptures, each depicting the individual body parts of some bizarre, impossible monster. Here were tendrils and tentacles and black-skinned teeth, there were talons and claws and, over by the window, a gigantic eye, milk-white and scored as though by chisel marks.
I murmured: “I never knew you were an artist.”
“I dabble. It’s a hobby I discovered after I left the service.” She asked the minefield question: “What do you think?”
“It’s weird,” I said, trying to be tactful. “There’s a lot of black. A lot of tentacles.”
She nodded. “I only seem able to approach my subject in parts.”
“Is it some sort of allegory? Something modern and difficult?”
“On the contrary, Henry. This is life drawing.”
Before I could ask more, something small, gray and very familiar padded into the studio, looked over at me and mewed.
“Hello there,” I said, feeling absurdly disappointed not to get a reply. I made that strange high-pitched kissing sound that everyone seems to make around cats, at which the animal trotted meekly over and allowed me to stroke the underside of his chin.
“He recognizes you,” Miss Morning said.
I agreed, and I have to admit that my spirits lifted, just a tiny bit, at the knowledge of it. “It’s astonishing he found you,” I said.
“You know what he is, don’t you?”
I was tickling the animal’s belly by now, making it squirm and purr with pleasure.
“The cat is your grandfather’s agent in the waking world. He is the old man’s familiar.”
Gingerly, I removed my hand from the cat’s tummy. “What do you mean?”
“It’s the old man’s servant, an avatar, an extension of his self. A distillation of sheer willpower cloaked in flesh, fur and whiskers. He sees through its eyes and it has all his guile, all his wisdom. Your grandfather chose its form but I may also be able to change its shape.”
I looked down doubtfully at the animal. “Alternatively, it might just be my granddad’s cat.”
“Is there something you wanted to tell me?” Miss Morning asked pleasantly. “You sounded agitated on the phone.”
Looking warily back at the feline, I dropped my voice almost to a whisper. “Are you sure it’s safe to talk?”
“I sweep this place twice a day for bugs. We’re as secure here as Dedlock in the Eye. Probably safer.”
I took a breath, before the truth came out in a torrent. “The Directorate is going to let the Prefects lead us to Estella. And it’s going to happen soon.”
The old lady gazed at me gravely and murmured: “There’s no fool like an old fool. By which yardstick, that old man’s a moron. But why have you come to me with this?”
“I need to know what happened with Estella.”
Miss Morning tottered toward a colossal fang and rested on it for support as she released a long, rattling sigh. “You’d better sit down,” she said at last.
I lowered myself onto a tiny wooden chair which looked as though it had been stolen from a classroom.
“Your grandfather loved Estella,” Miss Morning began. “Adored her. He was the only one who loved her for who she was and not simply for the contours of her figure. But he let it happen to her just the same.”
I shuffled uncomfortably in my chair.
“At the end of the sixties, we were losing the war badly. An entire division had just been wiped out on field exercises in the Malvern Hills. Leviathan was coming and we had no means of stopping it. Your grandfather grew desperate. He started to consider the most extreme solutions. Even this… Against all advice and his own better judgment, on April fourth, 1967, he summoned the Prefects. He told them everything. Begged for their help. They thought for a while — Hawker scratching his head, Boon sucking on a sherbet lemon — before they told him how to stop the beast. All they wanted in return, the only thing they asked for… Well, I’m sure they haven’t lost any time in telling you that.”
My stomach turned over and I thought of my father’s last, frantic moments of life, gasping for breath on the hard shoulder of a motorway.
“In exchange, the Prefects told your grandfather about the Process.”
“The Process?”
“You’ve heard the phrase before?”
“From the Prefects, yes. And it was in Granddad’s journal. Why? What is it?”
“The Process is high science and low magic. It bends time and compresses matter.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Your mouth is open and there are words coming out but I don’t know what any of them mean.”
Miss Morning sighed. “The Process transforms a person into a vessel. It turns them into a living prison, a jail to hold the monster. We needed a volunteer. Someone strong. Someone physically tough. They would require certain preparations… incisions to the brain… Then we were to take them to a place of power.”
“What do you mean? A place of power?”
“An old site. Somewhere charged up with psychic energy. Marked out with certain signs and sigils.”
“And then what?”
“We had to make them bleed, Henry. We had to slash their wrists and let the life dribble out of them. Until they were empty. Until they were hollowed out.”
“That’s murder.”
“No. Not quite murder. That was the art of it.”
“And you went along with this?”
“We had no choice. Believe me. Can you guess who they chose as the vessel?”
The answer was grotesquely obvious. “Estella.”
Miss Morning gave a bleak twitch of her shoulders. “Dedlock insisted on her. So we went through with it. The whole thing.”
“Where did it happen?” I asked.