“It’s hardly fair,” Billy said. “He’s the only one of the whole lot of them who hasn’t killed anyone; he only just got here. It’s them who killed each other.”
“Yeah,” said Dane. “But he’s the only one of them living, and that anger’s got to go somewhere. They ain’t the most logical things. That’s why Simon’s being haunted by Simons. Poor bastard.”
“Right,” said Billy. “So why did he do it?” He pointed at the phaser, the catalogue, the note. “Someone contacts him. Here comes one of the biggest Trekkie sales for years, and he’s getting none of it, and someone contacts him with an offer he can’t refuse. They’ve done something with this gun.”
Dane nodded. “Contracted some mage. Some shaper’s knacked it so it’s real.”
“What’s he going to do?” said Billy. “Not want the world’s only working phaser? They say you just have to port one thing. So who wrote this note? Simon didn’t want a giant squid. Whoever dangled this gun in front of him’s our mystery player. They’re the ones who’ve got your god.”
PART THREE
LONDONMANCY
Chapter Forty
BILLY STARED AT SIMON’S ANGRY DEAD SELVES. DID SIMON FEEL the guilt they laid on him, the culpability for countless unintentional suicides? What an original sin.
At last Wati returned into a statuette of an Argelian dancer. “Open the door,” he said. Outside, a harassed-looking woman waited carrying a coiling ram’s horn.
“Dane,” she said, entered. “God almighty, what’s been going on here?”
“Mo’s the best I know,” Wati said. “And no one knows her …”
“Are you an exorcist?” Billy said. The woman rolled her eyes.
“She’s a rabbi, you moron,” said Wati. “Simon couldn’t give a shit one way or the other.”
“I’ve seen legion possession before,” Mo said. “But never … God almighty they’re all him.” She walked through the ghost corona and murmured to Simon gently. “I can try something,” she said. “But I’ve got to get him back to the temple.” She shook the shofar. “This won’t cut it.”
Dark came early and stayed full of lights and the shouts of children. Wati was on watch, circling through figures a mile around. Dane, Billy and Mo watched the moaned malice of Simon’s haunters.
“We have to go,” Wati said suddenly from a foot-high McCoy.
“Too early,” Dane said. “It’s not even midnight …”
“Now,” Wati said. “They’re coming.”
“Who do you …?”
“Christ, Dane! Move! Goss and fucking Subby!”
And everyone moved.
“TATTOO’S THOUGHT LIKE US,” WATI SAID AS THEY GRABBED THEIR stuff and hauled poor Simon in his ghost-cloud. “He’s tracked Simon down. His knuckleheads are coming. And Goss and Subby are with them.
“Some are in the main stairs. The rest are close. Goss and Subby are close.”
“Any other way out?” Dane said. Wati was gone, back.
“If there is there’s no statues by it.”
“Must be one at the back,” Billy said. “A fire escape.”
“Take a figure,” Wati said. “I’m going to get Goss and Subby off you.”
“Wait,” Dane said, but Wati was gone. Billy grabbed the phaser, the auction catalogue, a plastic Kirk. There was no one in the corridor. Dane hustled them round corners. Mo and Billy dragged Simon in a blanket that inadequately hid his tormentors. They heard the lift arriving. Dane raised his speargun and motioned Billy and Mo away.
“Down,” he said, pointing at the fire escape. “Mo, don’t let them see you. Billy, don’t let them see her.” He ran toward the lift.
“HUFF HUFF HUFF, EH SUBBY?”
Goss was jogging. Not very intensely, and with an exaggerated comic wobble of the head. Behind him came Subby with the same motion, unselfconsciously.
“The rest of the bears are just over the stream,” Goss said. “Once we cross the magic bridge we can help ourselves to all the honey. Huff huff huff.” There were two or three more turns between him and the base of the tower. Goss looked the length of the dark street. At a junction with a cul-de-sac were a band of battered dustbins. A moment of hard wind sent a full bin-bag falling, sent the bins wobbling, jostling among themselves, as if they were trying to shift away from Goss’s attention.
“Remember when Darling Bear and Sugar Bear came home with the Princess of Flower Picnics?” Goss said. He clenched and unclenched his fingers. He smiled, pulling back his lips from his teeth carefully and completely and biting the air. Subby stared at him.
“Billy, shift.”
At those faint words Goss stopped.
“Shut it, Dane.”
Whispered London voices. They were just off the street, in one of the darknesses that abutted it.