11. Remembering
Flame glanced up and down the street. A striated green mist had descended, gelatinous blobs and ribbons half-hiding their surroundings. It didn’t hide the fact that, a short distance in either direction, nets were suspended between the buildings.
She pointed at them; Paul mimed someone drawing aside a curtain.
She nodded vigorous agreement: the net couldn’t be connected to the wall all the way down, she thought, and even if it were, the gun, or sword would cut it.
Always assuming they could reach it.
They started to creep along the front of the building, their shadows bobbing ahead of them. The guards lying beneath the lamp post didn’t move, and Flame felt a thin thread of hope.
They had gone a few paces when she heard a faint scraping sound above her.
She looked up.
The first thing she saw was a sign hanging from a projecting rod above the far end of the bowed window. It was black, with glowing letters spelling out the words ‘Annelyn’s Antiques’.
Above that, however…
She frowned. Those big black humps ten to fifteen feet up the wall – she glanced along the street, saw more clinging to nearby buildings – surely, they hadn’t been there before? They were only on their side of the street, she realised, where they wouldn’t be visible from the window of their refuge.
She opened her mouth to whisper to Paul – but then one of the humps moved. It threw out an arm – and suddenly, a net spread above them.
“Look out!” she shrieked, instinctively raising her sword.
The net landed with the weight of a person on her shoulders, knocking her down. The sword jangled on the cobbles.
She didn’t have time to feel fear; she struggled to rise, and managed to lift herself onto her hands and knees. The edge of the net was a few feet in front of her, the thick, heavy cords weighted with stones and bones tied in place with greasy ribbons. She tried to crawl towards it, but could hardly move.
She heard a metallic scraping, and turned her head to see that the guards who had been lying beneath the lamppost had risen to their feet and were picking up their weapons.
With difficulty, she drew the knife from her belt, grasped a strand of the net and sawed at it.
Their tests had shown that it was still sharp, having been treated to resist the effects of wear and time. But Flame was still immensely grateful, and just a little astonished, to find she cut the rope without difficulty.
A black-robed figure dropped to the ground in front of her. It made a low sound, like a dog growling deep in its throat, and raised a pole with a pointed, crescent shaped blade above her.
Everything seemed to be happening slowly. Behind her, Paul yelled something. There was a flicker of violet light, like reflected lightning; in it, she glimpsed the face of the figure standing over her. It looked like a human face – but even more, as Kokalina had suggested, it looked like a mask: smooth, white and shiny, with a fixed expression.
And then the light was gone, and the figure was toppling slowly backwards, its weapon falling harmlessly to one side. She grasped the net and started to saw furiously.
Behind her, Paul spoke quickly. “Maximum spread, one second burst, intelligent targeting. Make sure you cut enough of the net to free us.”
There was another, longer flash, momentarily dazzling. She felt the net tug and heard the mud sigh. Turning, she saw Paul step through a hole edged with glowing, smoking strands. There was a hole around her, too; she stood up, throwing off the remains of the net.
The other three guards were rolling on the ground, their hoods thrown back, giving high pitched, eerie howls.
More were advancing from both ends of the street, black robes swishing, pieces of shell clicking, scraps of polished metal flashing.
Flame grabbed Paul’s arm. “We must get back inside.”
He ignored her. “Gun, how much power do you have left?”
“Two point seven seconds, sir.”
“Give me, ah, one third per shot.”
“Point nine seconds per shot, sir.”
“Get inside, Paul!” she screamed, seeing polished pieces of shell against the black robes. “The gun fires light! Some of them are wearing mirrors!”
Paul didn’t move. He held the gun two-handed and waited – waited while Flame looked fearfully around and saw that at least twenty figures were advancing from the mist, hooked poles held high. The wounded ones were now making a low crooning; the rest advanced in silence, seemingly without fear.
Then, at what seemed the last possible moment, Paul fired.
A line of twisted brightness blinked across walls, robes, faces. There was a sound like a huge breath, followed by a sound like frying.
All around them the creatures were falling, howling, twisting, beating at burning robes.
“You get inside,” said Paul, his voice impossibly calm. He turned and walked towards the other enemy line. Flame watched as he knelt and took careful aim. The line had stopped advancing, possibly cowed by what had happened to their comrades. They swayed in silence, waving blades above their heads.
Paul pulled the trigger. There was a dry, protracted sound, like a huge piece of cloth tearing. The gun said, “Damage alert. Failure imm – ”
Then the top of the barrel cracked open and an incandescent sword leapt up from it, a thin, ruler-straight rod of light that seemed to pierce the sky.
It lasted no longer than a lightning flash. Paul screamed and started to fall slowly backwards. The gun, its barrel glowing cherry red, fell into a puddle of black ooze, which ignited; blue-yellow flames raced along the edge of the road, hissing and crackling.
After a moment, the enemy resumed their advance, sickle-like weapons swishing from side to side, white mask-faces expressionless.
“Get up, Paul!” screamed Flame. He was still falling, flailing at the air, the action slowly propelling him back into an upright position – but the soup-like atmosphere made every movement slow, and before he could regain his balance, another Creep landed between them and the door to ‘Annelyn’s Antiques’.
Its pole was hanging from a sling across its back; it paused to bring it into action. Flame saw the sword she’d dropped lying by her feet. She snatched it up, and held it pointing towards the creature in what she hoped was a threatening manner…
And suddenly, she felt different.
As when she’d picked up Calgium’s sword, she felt a strange rightness. She felt as though she instinctively knew how to handle the blade. She realised that she was adjusting her stance to balance its weight. Abruptly, the weapon seemed like an extension of her arm.
“What’s happening?” she whispered. “Kokalina, are you… ?”
“Don’t think,” said Kokalina inside her head. “You’re doing this yourself. I hadn’t dared hope this would happen!”
“Doing what?” she asked, moving without thinking to lunge at the creature that was still unshipping its pole weapon.
“Remembering!”
“What do you…” She broke off as the tip of her sword, seemingly of its own volition, flashed past the pole her opponent had raised to block her attack and entered its throat.
She gasped in horrified disbelief as several inches of polished steel slid without resistance into the neck beneath the white face. Yellow blood fountained around it. She jerked the sword free – and her opponent’s shiny white face fell off.
It was, as expected, a mask, though she hadn’t suspected what lay beneath – a mass of overlapping, constantly moving reddish-brown plates, separated by black hairy ridges. Tiny dark eyes peered from deep crevices, and two segmented things like miniature arms waved on either side of a mouth like half a blood orange with the flesh scooped out.
For a moment, she stood frozen, her mind crowded with half formed thoughts. Is it human? – another mask? – another adaptation, like the Horathrai, but more extreme?
But then the thing swung its hooked blade at her, even as it started to fall with blood spraying around it, and she leaned backwards, so that the gleaming tip arced inches in front of her face – and someone grabbed her arm.
She turned, half raising the sword – and saw Paul. He dragged her back towards the door, jumping over the still burning gutter – she stumbled straight through the flames, realised as she did so that Kokalina’s magic armour was protecting her – and then they were in the doorway. Paul pushed her inside and followed, slamming the door, shouting, “Lock it, Kokalina!”
The clunk of the mechanism was simultaneous with the crash of an axe striking the other side – to no effect, except to give a high-pitched pling.
For an instant, there was silence. Then Paul gave a whoop of triumph. “Thank Custos!”
Flame had staggered against the remains of a bookcase, which was now slowly disintegrating. “Unholy Hell,” she said, breathing heavily. There was triumph in her voice too. She clenched her fists in the darkness, feeling an electric charge pass through her. It felt similar to how she’d felt on the last day of Summer when Simon accepted her surrender, and she his, on the wall by the Lightning Tree.
“By Hell, Paul,” she cried. “You were so cool!”
“That was easy,” he said. “It was them or us. But you…” He turned and looked at her slowly. “You were – different. I saw you, Flame. I saw my soppy sister who goes weak kneed when she sees a god-damned spider run a monster through as though she was the Jade Princess. How in Hell’s black bowels did you do that?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Kokalina said I was – remembering. Remembering what?”
“Not what,” said Kokalina. “Who.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“There is something I have been meaning to tell you,” said Kokalina, “Until now there have been more pressing matters to attend to – but I think now, it is time.”