Deep breath, exhale, aim.
The tiny hole of the backsight lined up with the notch of the foresight. Dalip turned his body fractionally, raised his arms slightly. Crows was merging with the shadows inside the gorge, but he was still just about visible.
The sun exploded out from behind the rolling moon, and he fired blind.
He blinked away the tears. The gorge was a black slit, and he had no idea if he’d hit or missed. Slowly, he lowered the rifle, clenched his jaw and balled his fists. He didn’t trust himself to say or do anything.
He’d had him. He’d had him in his sights once, twice, three times. Crows had still got away. He couldn’t blame Mary. It was his own fault. So much for the value of solemn vows.
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry,’ she said.
He could hear her move behind him. He stared at the ground, then back into the gorge.
‘They’re all dead, you know,’ he said.
‘Who?’
‘The crew. Some sort of gas, or biological thing. Wiped out the entire ground floor. Just me and the steersman left, and I don’t know about him.’
‘Simeon… I don’t think he’s… He saved me. In the end. I… sorry.’
‘Damn,’ said Dalip. ‘Damn them all.’
‘Is he supposed to go so stiff, so quickly?’
When he looked, she was poking the body of the ferryman with the end of the machete.
‘If he was human, no. But, I don’t know, maybe that’s what happens.’
He bent down beside its head, and laid the back of his hand against the cheek. It was cold. He checked the eyes, which were open and sightless.
‘Give me the machete,’ he said. He moved the safety over to lock the bolt action, and they swapped weapons.
He tore the cloth apart, and revealed an almost featureless torso, made from some thick rubbery material that most definitely wasn’t skin. He tried chopping his way through, but it was impossible. The stuff absorbed all the energy, and the edge of the blade wasn’t sharp enough to slice it. The three holes made by the bullets formed a wide triangle, one high up on the left, one halfway down on the right, the last, in the middle, where the belly button should have been. He tried to enlarge that hole by pushing the point of the machete into it. It stretched, but it didn’t tear.
He stopped and sat back on his haunches.
‘There’s probably something better in the hut,’ she said. ‘Do you want me to go and look?’
‘If we’re going anywhere, we’d better go together.’ He looked up at her. ‘Don’t you think?’
29
Mary opened the door, Dalip trained the rifle on every corner of the room. It looked as she remembered it, a chaotic mess of clothes, weapons, containers and artefacts, but the meaning of it had changed. It was a stage set, the first act of deception in a long line of set pieces and misdirections that were as deliberately designed as a theme-park ride.
He declared it safe, and she went in, still cautious, poking around, lifting sheets and opening lids.
The sheer variety of items was astonishing, like a charity shop, full of discards. Most of it, she could recognise, but the purpose and use of some of the things was lost on her.
‘We need more bullets.’
She nodded, and looked up at the hangers over the fireplace where the rifle had sat. Any spare rounds might be close by, so she picked her way towards the cold hearth. She could have spent hours sifting and sorting carefully, but she wasn’t that sort of girl. She picked up boxes and baskets, tipped the contents out in a space on the floor, and raked her hand through the pile to spread them out. It took a second or two to confirm there were no bullets, before she swept the space clear again and emptied the next box.
‘You’ve done this before,’ said Dalip.
‘So? You’ve got things you’re good at, I’ve got mine.’
There was a pretty brooch in this one, a cluster of deep red faceted stones set in a dirty gilt setting. She pinned it to her bodice, and carried on searching.
Dalip poked at a few things, before slumping into the ferryman’s chair.
‘I should have…’
‘Well, I don’t think so.’
‘Really?’
‘No. You were going to kill a man while he was asleep. You think that’d make you feel good?’
‘It’s not about me. It would have been justice. Doing it while he slept would have been more than he deserved.’
‘What, you wanted to watch him piss himself before you pulled the trigger?’
‘I just wanted him to realise what he’d done.’
‘He knows what he’s done. He doesn’t give a shit about that or anything else. We know that.’
‘You stopped me.’
‘Since when were you the sort of bloke to kill someone in their sleep? You think your grandfather would’ve done that?’
‘I know he did. He told me he slit the throats of three Japanese soldiers one night when he crept into their camp.’
‘That was war.’
‘And this isn’t?’
‘You’re not your grandfather, though, are you?’
‘No. No, I’m not.’ He looked bitter and disappointed, and she kicked herself for trying some stupid easy comparison with a man Dalip had a hugely complicated relationship with.
‘Look. So he did that. And yes, I stopped you from mashing Crows’ head with your big rock. But I didn’t stop you from shooting him. That was you.’
‘I know. That’s why I’m angry. Not with you. With me.’
‘Talk to me about the map,’ she said. She was running out of nearby boxes and baskets to upturn, but there were still one or two left.
‘There’s no pattern. There never was. And that’s the problem. Whatever they’ve got in the White City is distorting the natural order, forcing it out of shape so hard the portals are snapping away from London, one by one. Every time that happens, new lines of power are made, but they’re not stable.’
She contemplated that piece of information. ‘Are you sure? I think there’s a portal here that goes all the way to the future. These things in robes have to be getting their orders from somewhere.’
She watched him carefully. He didn’t dismiss her idea out of hand. He raised his gaze, resting his head against the barrel of the rifle he held between his knees, and his frown deepened. ‘Both of us can’t be right.’
‘Whatever it is, it’s in the round building, right?’
He nodded. ‘If we can get in.’
‘I asked. No one knows.’
‘More like no one’s telling. We’re going to have to find it ourselves.’
‘Just you and me? Against all of them? It took how many shots just to bring one of them down?’
‘Three,’ he said. He turned the rifle across his knees and unclipped the magazine. He used his thumb to flick out the brass bullets, one by one, into the palm of his hand. ‘Five left.’
‘Is this a good time to tell you they have more guns? They offered them to Simeon in exchange for the maps.’
He fed the bullets back into the magazine and locked it back into place. ‘This just gets worse. We know where to go, but can’t get anywhere near it. And we’re not going to find any more ammunition, are we? You have what you carry through the portal. No planning, no supplies. You come as you are, or not at all.’
He looked down to his left, and rummaged through the pile of things there. He came across the bags of honours. ‘What are these?’
‘They’re like fairground tokens. You spend them in the city, but you don’t get anything real for them. They give them to you so you think you’re in control, but they’re cheating you the whole time. You think there are monsters and men, and it turns out some of the men are really monsters. You think that some of the others are people looking for answers, like you, but they’re not. And while you’re asking questions, they’re getting all the answers and telling you nothing. It’s like a big experiment for them, and we’re the things getting poked.’