Scar Night Page 0,77

pulled his cleaver from his belt and swiped madly at the air. The partition swayed and almost stole his balance.

The demons shrieked.Close your eyes! Let us in!

He saw them when he didn’t look at them, always out of the corners of his eyes. Vague black shapes, darker than the surrounding gloom. Glimpses of long red teeth and long white fingers. Sharp nails. Whenever he tried to get a proper look at them, they fled, as if furious at his gaze. He twisted his head around frantically, trying to track them. They were everywhere at once, yet nowhere, moving so fast he couldn’t be sure he saw anything at all. Now that his eyes were growing accustomed to the darkness, he spied the window in the far wall, a bleary grey square, and the upper edge of the partition nearest to it. He knew there was another partition in front of him, but he would have to gauge the distance across from memory. If he got it wrong he’d be down in the maze, and without the lantern light he’d likely stay there for good.

Something touched the back of his neck.

Mr. Nettle flinched, twisted round. Shadows churned like a swarm of beetles, hissing.

Close your eyes. Stay here with us.

Hell he would. The scrounger tucked his cleaver back into his belt and stepped out into nothing.

The sole of his boot pressed against something solid. For a moment he balanced there, each foot on the top edge of a different partition, and then he stepped across.

Let us in!

Now he could make out a few faint lines: the tops of two or three partitions closest to the window. Glass glinted below. But he still had to cross twenty feet of darkness as profound as the Chapelfunnel canal. How could he even know if another partition ran parallel to the one he was on? Would he step into the space where one corridor joined another and tumble headfirst between two walls of glass? And if he fell, would he instinctively close his eyes?

There is no danger from us,the Non Morai crooned.We want to help you. If you try to cross here you will fall. Move left a pace. Safer .

Last thing he needed was to have them tell him which way to go. He took another step.

Felt nothing beneath his foot.

Fell.

Glass bit deeply into both shoulders and arms, gouged through flesh. His jaw slammed against the floor, the impact kicking the wind out of him. He couldn’t help it: for an instant he closed his eyes.

That was enough.

Mr. Nettle snapped his eyes open but it was already too late. He felt something pushing into him, like stale water being forced into his lungs. And he could taste it: the taste of airless pools and dead weeds. He clawed at the air in front of his face, tried to pull whatever was there away. But there was nothing. The rank fluid flooded his throat and lungs. Mr. Nettle gagged, coughed, fought for air. Fear gripped him, and he scrambled upright and ran.

Glass walls ripped his shoulders to shreds. He ploughed on blindly, unable to breathe. Mr. Nettle knew he was a coward. He’d always been one. He’d known it since his father, a huge man with weed-stained fingers, had held him by the scruff of the neck over the edge of Nine Ropes Bridge, over the darkness.

There’s bottles down there.

Five years old and not knowing there was a net, he’d begged his old man not to let go of him. Then he was falling. Then came the net. He’d lain there for an age, sobbing and clutching the hemp strands, and when the tears finally stopped, he’d scrambled around looking for bottles. There had been none.

There never were any bottles, the Non Morai hissed, imitating his old man’s voice. Thought that net had frayed and wasted .

Now Mr. Nettle felt the same terror again: blind fear crushing his heart and lungs. He barged down the corridor. Sharp edges plucked constantly at his flesh. Blood sluiced over his arms. He didn’t care, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. He was going to die.

He slammed into a wall.

Glass fragments shattered against his hands, shoulders, chest. Mr. Nettle roared in pain, recoiled, and threw himself at the wall again.

Iril’s shrine shuddered. The partition collapsed, crashing into the one behind.

Then he was climbing up and over a slope of glass. At the top he saw the window, only three yards away. He leapt, fell short. Arms wrapped around the top of the