Exchange rates.
Some heavy losses.
Murdoch slowly swung her gun away from me, towards the real threat. Twin guns now, both of them pointed towards each other, mirrored in the same need. Beetle and Murdoch.
I heard the moon howl.
Dingo Tush was in the area. His jaws were split wide so that the inside was visible, slavering. He was calling up dogs from all over the Fallowfield, howling at the moon. Felt like the moon was howling.
I could hear the dogs responding.
The Dingo van came open and a pack of hybrids shot loose, charging the concrete with their claws. I guess Murdoch got some visions of the Karli Dog just then, and she didn't fancy a repeat play of the last pad debacle. The gun reared up in her hands as it spat smoke. Then the noise of it. Then the bullet reaching out for a new home.
The Beetle answered her.
More or less the same time. Not quite the same time.
One gun fired.
And then the other.
One gun was later than the other.
Listen carefully. This is the secret of how to live: fire your gun before somebody else does.
The Beetle reeled back from the bullet.
His shoulder exploded. It was a warm flower opening on his flesh. I got flecked with some Beetle blood, across the cheeks.
There was a siren ringing in my head, behind my closed-up eyes, and the howling of wolves, as the dog pack ran riot.
There were bullets, suddenly, flying everywhere. I had a high pitch inside of me, a high-pitched screaming, like some woman had caught a stray shot.
Wonder who that was, caught that bad gift?,
Hope it wasn't Mandy. Hope it wasn't…
And I felt myself being lifted up, lifted up above everything. Above the world of rain. Above the world with its screamings and its sirens. And all of its pain, dripping away, like the last few raindrops, into a small quiet pool of sunlight.
Where was I going? And who was taking me?
I'm walking through the leafy lane of a small town. Children are playing on the green. The postman whistles a jaunty melody. Mothers hang washing on lines, birds sing from leafy sundrenched trees. I walk towards the post office. Its sign calls it Pleasureville Post Office. And I know where I am now. I'm in Pleasureville, a low-level blue Vurt, nothing special, totally legal, been there before, years before, when such things excited me. But never like this.
Never like this. Not without a feather. I was just there! Totally there. With no pain, no anxiety, no hassles. Smelt like sweetness.
I was walking the quiet lanes of Pleasureville, only the tiny laughter of kids to trouble me. No trouble. I can handle that. And the whistle of the postman, and the singing of the birds. No trouble. I can handle that.
And the knowledge that I was there, that I knew I was there, in the Vurt, and that another world was waiting for me, if I so wished; a world of pain. I could pull out any time. Or stay here forever.
That's forever.
Which is a vicious temptation.
There is a dream out there, of a nation's second rise; when the dragon is slain and the good queen awakens from her coma-sleep, to a land capable of giving breath to her. The followers of ENGLISH VOODOO worship the new queen. The queen is the keeper of our dreams. Through her portals you can see a paradise of change, where trees are green, birds do sing, and the trains run on time. Also, lots of sex; that special kind, with a delicious English thump. The Voodoo is a Knowledge Feather. It leads to other worlds. It cannot be bought, only given. You wanna go down there? Into the English Voodoo? Fine. And beyond? Fine, very fine. Just take precautions. That wet trip is a demon-path of bliss and pain, equal amounts. Be careful. Be very, very careful. Those sugar walls will squeeze you to the bone. Cat knows. Cat has been there. And lived. Just. You want to see the scars?
Well yes, I guess you do.
Status: black, with sexy pink, and with glints of yellow. It's got some doors in it, through to the Yellow worlds. Step softly, traveller, don't get yourself swapped.
Not unless you want to be.
The first time that I came down, I came down into a dog world. Smelt bad, real bad after the sweet, feathery aromas of Pleasureville.
There was a dog face looming over me; mixed in there, amongst the fur and the jaws, were some bare traces of the human lineaments. This only made it worse, the shock of seeing that face, one of the many heads of Cerberus, leaning right over me, and that breath, that stench on my face.
They tell me that I screamed then.
Maybe I did.
I was too busy getting out of there, out of my head.
The Pleasure postman greeted me with a cheery hello.
"Anything for me today, Postie?"
"Just the one, Mr Scribble," he replied, handing me a letter. I opened the sun-golden envelope, and pulled out a birthday card. The card was the brightest yellow I had ever seen. The words Happy Birthday were written in a dark and clotted red hand across the yellow.
I opened the card to find out whose birthday it was.
The second time I came down, I was in a travelling kennel of mad dogs. The stench was still there, ten times worse, but at least the dog face had left me alone.
I was pressed against the rear doors, like I'd been the last to get in the van. There were no windows, but I could feel us moving, at some speed, some law-breaking speed along a bumpy path. Felt like a well jammed-up Beetle was at the wheel, the old style, and I was glad for that.
I raised myself up on a pair of skinless elbows. How did that happen? I really thought the police had got me, and I expected to see Murdoch there, grinning, surrounded by her dumbfuck cronies.
All I got was the fleshy hindquarters of dogs. There are times in life when this is all you get. They were tight-pressed in that small space, maybe seven or eight of them, difficult to tell, what with the van lights broken and the mishmash of their bodies. All of them had bits of dog mixed in there, and bits of human, only in varying degrees, and they were crowded and pressed over some other forms.
What the fuck was under there?
Then I saw Beetle's face through a gap in the fur.
But surely, the Beetle was driving the van?;
I was getting bits and pieces of the story then, coming back to me through the pain and confusion. Beetle's face, that sudden glimpse of him, was full of suffering, and my heart jumped.
Jumped.
Jumped.
Beetle had been hit…
I couldn't…
Couldn't…
Looked like they were licking him!
Then his face was covered by the closing fur once again and I saw Mandy for the first time. She was crouched against the van wall, holding on to nothing, just like the old days.
Old days! Three weeks ago!
"Mandy…" I whispered, my voice drifting.
She turned to me slowly. She turned her wet and beautiful eyes towards me, and I saw the hurt in there, way beyond the dream.
That's when Tristan screamed. From the dogs. From the middle of all those canines, those half humans. What were they doing back there? And why was Tristan screaming, like he'd been hurt, hurt real bad. It was the worst scream of all time.
Then I remembered the stray bullet, and that maybe someone had been caught by it. And maybe that someone was Tristan.
It was. But not in that way.
Then Mandy reached out to me. In her hands she held a scrap of clothing. It was a black cloth, made dirty by some other substance, some kind of dark fluid.
Blood.
Beetle's blood. And that was a piece of his favourite jacket, the black cord jacket, with the six buttons up the sleeves, and the double vents, and the tailored waist.
Mandy's hands were smeared with Vaz and blood. Like she'd been stroking his black clotted hair.
But it was the cloth that held me. There amidst the blood and the dirt hung a lump of glitter. It was hard and slightly rounded, flickering green and violet, with a long tongue of gold protruding. The thing was fastened to the cloth with a tarnished brass pin and I knew it then for what it was.