The voice came from the pavement above the mouth of the subway stairwell, out of my line of sight. That too was probably the source of the dart that impaled my back like the nose of an angry swordfish, and with it, the quick shrinking down of my world to a pinprick of yellow light that tightened, tightened and, with a sigh, went out, taking me with it.
We woke, didn’t know where we were, and panicked. In our confusion we lashed out at the nearest thing we could find and shattered the front passenger seat window into a hail of safety glass with our fear, before a hot electric snap across our neck sent us lurching back into a painful blackness, from which no amount of violent dreaming could wake us.
When we next woke, we felt a tightness in our chest, an aching in our arms, a terrible pain in our shoulders, and a hot patch of blood in the small of our back, where the dart that had first knocked us into darkness had been pulled out by someone who didn’t care how much it bit into our skin. We jerked on waking, the fear sweeping us; but this time awareness and control were quicker to come and with all my strength I kept my eyes shut, my breathing level, and my face empty.
That first start of surprise when we woke, though, had betrayed us, and over the sound of rushing traffic, through the flashing regular pulse of neon light racing by and the cold breath of wind through the shattered passenger window, we heard Oda’s voice say, disinterestedly, “He’s awake again,” and that was cue enough for someone to send us back to darkness.
The last waking of that outward journey was the slowest of them all. There was no more traffic hum around me, but the pain in my joints was amplified tenfold. I came back to awareness with the slow understanding that the greyness on the edge of my vision was the beginning of sunrise, that the wetness on my face was from dew on the grass, that the cold dampness seeping through my clothes was rising up from the mud I’d been dropped on, that the pain in my shoulders came from the position of my arms, pinned behind my body, which had then fallen back, cutting off any remaining circulation to my fingertips. I felt frazzled and sick, but not entirely afraid. Perhaps the repetition of my wakings and sleepings had inured me to fear; perhaps it was simple relief at being alive, I didn’t know and didn’t care – the stillness of my own mind was a comfort in itself.
The world fascinated us, that I now saw at right-angles from where our head had fallen on the grass. As the pale sunlight started to sneak over the top of a chalky hill, we became aware of the smell of mud, animals, dead leaves, mould, rain, dew, cattle manure and fresh water, mixed with just a hint of burnt tyre. We heard the calls of wrens, sparrows, starlings, magpies, blackbirds, blue tits, and woodpeckers, and saw, crawling an inch from our nose through the mud, tiny flies and other insects, some no more substantial than the lightest drizzle glimpsed falling at night in front of a street lamp. We had never seen so much open nothingness, nor imagined that nothingness could be so busy in the pallid light. We searched for power to drag to our hands, to pick at the tight plastic cuffs that were rapidly causing our fingers to go numb, and though it was there, though we could sense some sort of magic, some lingering essence on the cold air, it was strange to us, like an echo of song, heard far off.
Countryside.
Bloody crappy pollen-drenched, grass-covered, dew-soaked bloody countryside.
Not a neon bulb, not a power line, not a water or gas main within half a mile all around. Nothing to arm myself with, except what little warmth was left inside our blood.
A voice said, “I take it you’re not a country man.”
I croaked, tasting bile in my mouth, “It’s got its charms.”
“But you are an
“Just a point of view,” I whispered. “That’s all.”
Hands pulled me up by the elbows and shoulders, and as the world swung back into place I forced down the taste of acid in my throat, and half-closed my eyes against the sensation of spinning. I saw a pair of black leather shoes, topped by smart black trousers, a black jacket and – here was the bad news – a dog collar and a purple scarf. Never underestimate the ridiculous things that have been done in the name of religious-semantic obscurity.
The face that topped these defining features was round and smiling, friendly in the manner of all inviting alligators who only want to talk; it was the colour of rich, dark chocolate, and topped by silvery-grey curly hair, plaited at the back of the neck into dreadlocks of such solidity that I suspected they’d never be undone. The owner of this ensemble appearance spoke in a soft voice, lyrical with a gentle tone, and said, “May I put a suggestion to you, Mr Swift?”
“Where’s the biker?” I asked. “What about Blackjack?”
“He’s fine.”
“Fine what? Finely chopped, with a stick of celery?”
“I think, considering your position, you’ll have to take my word on it, Mr Swift.”
I looked round cautiously. The field in which I’d been dumped was bordered by tall trees on two sides; elsewhere it stretched away into more rolling muddy shapes: a landscape devoid of any kind of help. Around me, in various poses of threatening or sceptical looming intent, were more men and women, of every colour and age; some held guns, and one or two, we noticed with something resembling disgust, were holding swords, or fireman’s axes, with the look of people who not only knew how to use them, but enjoyed doing so. Oda was among them; in one hand she had a curved blade that resembled a samurai’s katana, still in its ornate sheath, while over her shoulder and more to the point, I felt, was slung an automatic rifle with a sturdy wooden butt and the well-oiled look of a weapon properly cared for.
She stared at me, and there was no pity in her gaze.
I stammered, trying to keep our eyes on the silver-haired man, “You want something.”
“I have a question I’d like to ask you. Or at least, I’ve got a question I’ve been asked to ask you. Personally, I find it unlikely you will survive the judgment, but these tests must still be administered, even now and to someone as shrunken as you.”
“You’ve got my attention.”
“Can you control them?”
“What?”
“It’s very simple, Mr Swift. Can you keep control?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Please, let’s not play coy with this. It is the matter on which your whole life currently depends. Should I decide that you are incapable of keeping the creatures currently inside you at bay, should I judge that you are a threat equal or even superior to that which you are attempting to destroy, I will have your head removed from your shoulders, your face shot off, your fingerprints burnt away and the remnants dumped in a variety of rivers feeding a number of fish-infested seas. So please, take me seriously when I say, I will have an answer. Can you keep control?”
I licked my lips and felt the shaking in my bones. “I’m a sorcerer. I’ve been taught how to…”
“This isn’t about your sorcery!” he snapped. “Tell me about
“About who?”
He hit us with the back of his hand, across the face, and his knuckles slammed into our jaw and the pain filled us with shock and astonishment, anger flashing inside us. Hands pulled me back up and he said again,
“Can you keep control?”
“Who are you?”
He hit us on the other side of our head, and when we tried to crawl back up of our own accord he hit us again, knocking us once more to the earth. I bit down the anger turning the silver streaks of sunlight electric blue in my eyes and waited for the people there to pull me up. When they did, he said again, “You must be angry by now, Mr Swift, you must be afraid. You’ve died once before, and your kind can only see the flames of hell when your heart stops, when your soul leaves, so you must be afraid. Can you control them, when they think about dying, when they wonder about losing their newfound existence, can you stop them from lashing out, can you keep them under the calm waters of reason, can you persuade them not to fight, kick, scream defiance, can you stay human? Can you
