him — and it was growing deeper the stronger he got. He’s feeding off the city, she thought, like a plant, living off the sun. She groped for a term and came up with Urbosynthesis.
The undergrowth gave way to a clearing filled with gravestones where life-sized statues stood sentinel. Granite monks stood side by side with scholars in stone togas. The Virgin Mary bent over her baby. Two marble angels wrapped their wings around one another as they kissed, and a statue of a blindfolded woman held a sword above a grave with the inscription: John Archibald, justice. Hanged 1860.
There were almost as many statues as headstones, arranged in a rough circle. A stone monk stood at the heart of the crowd, his heavy granite cowl shading his eyes. He held one finger in the air and his lips were carved slightly open, as though the sculptor had captured him telling a joke — a dirty one, judging by the lascivious twist to his mouth.
‘Well.’ Fil gave a resigned sigh. ‘We’re here.’
‘Where’s here?’ Beth asked. ‘Apart from the set for a bad vampire movie?’
‘The garden of my mother’s temple.’ A wry smile flickered across his lips. ‘Say hello, Beth.’
‘To who?’
‘To your ghosts.’
‘What are you saying, Filius — that we’re dead to you? I’m hurt.’
Beth started. The voice was, well, gravelly — and it had come from the stone monk.
Fil bit his lip sheepishly and said, ‘Petris — I didn’t recognise you.’ He looked at the statue. ‘Have you lost weight?’
‘Indeed.’ The voice coming from the statue sounded parched. The monk’s stone lips didn’t move. ‘Off the face. Little vandals.’
‘Oh, a chisel job? I–I like it, very sleek. It makes you look…’ He tailed off, looking awkward.
‘Yes?’
‘Um…’
The statue’s sigh was like tumbling shale. ‘Clearly, tact wasn’t one of the lessons I actually managed, by some Herculean effort, to hammer through your skull. Who’s the young lady?’
The statue hadn’t moved. Its stone eyes, behind their cataracts of moss, didn’t twitch. But now Beth could feel it looking at her.
‘Have you fallen foul of that lamp-lass’ temper already, Filius?’ the statue went on. ‘Or is the young prince sampling daytime delights as well now?’ His tone was heavy with innuendo.
‘She’s just a friend, Petris,’ Fil said, ‘and I can’t imagine how I failed to learn tact from someone as well- versed in sticking his nose in as you are.’
‘Alas, if only I still had a whole nose to stick in,’ Petris said mournfully.
‘Yeah,’ said Fil, ‘you ugly bastard.’ He stepped forward and threw his skinny arms around the statue. Beth half expected the granite arms to enfold the boy, but they remained fixed in place as he hung around the stone monk’s neck with his legs kicking in the air.
A grating laugh issued from the statue’s mouth.
‘Beth,’ Fil said, ‘this is Petris. He taught me nearly every dirty trick I know.’
‘Er… Pleasure.’ Beth looked quizzically at the statue. ‘I thought you said your teacher was called Gutter- something?’
‘Gutterglass. Different teachers for different things. You get a lot of tutors when you’re royalty. Glas was like an uncle to me, and an aunt, and she did a bang-up job. This filthy old priest here’ — he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the statue — ‘was responsible for my — uh — moral education.’
‘I did my best to show you the difference between right and wrong,’ Petris said grandly.
‘And “wrong” you thought best shown by example.’
The statue spluttered, and Beth could see little flecks of saliva wetting the stone around its mouth. ‘That’s not fair, Filius.’
‘No? That garbage gin nearly killed me.’
‘You were a damn sight more interested in that than nineteenth-century gas-lamp theodicies,’ the stone monk said snippily. ‘I was merely doing what any good teacher would and linking the lesson to what you knew.’ His tone grew conspiratorial. ‘Can you honestly tell me you didn’t have a religious experience with that magnetic massage I taught you? If you didn’t then your electric girlfriend certainly would have.’
Fil laughed, but he blushed a little too. ‘Admit it, you were a terrible influence.’
‘Maybe, but a superb taker of confession. You never held anything back.’
‘There was no point! You were there with me while I was sinning!’
‘I just teach the rules, Filius; I never claimed to be good at following them.’ A coughing sound came from the statue’s immobile mouth and little clouds of powdery grey dust puffed out in front of his lips.
Fil winced, but said nothing.
‘Anyway,’ Petris said when the coughing fit had subsided, ‘not that it isn’t marvellous to see you, you little terror, but why in Thames’ name are you here now? I haven’t had word of you in months.’
Behind his back, Fil had both hands on the haft of his railing. His grubby thumbs started to rub over one another. ‘I-’ He glanced back over his shoulder at Beth. ‘ We need your help.’
Petris’ laughter drained away. Any motion was far too small to see, but Beth was positive she felt all the statues in the clearing shift a tiny bit closer.
‘Really?’ Petris’ tone was mild. ‘Do tell. What could a humble Pavement Priest do for the Son of the Streets?’
Fil looked straight at the statue’s birdshit-speckled eyes. ‘Fight for his Mother again.’
Everything in the clearing froze. They weren’t simply still — they’d been still before — but now every human- shaped hunk of stone seemed to emit a tangible chill.
‘Well, what a request,’ Petris said slowly. His voice was very quiet. ‘Filius, you know I’d need a heart of stone to refuse you anything, but-’
Beth snorted.
Fil looked up at her sharply and she felt Petris doing the same.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Don’t mind me.’
‘Yes?’ the statue said.
‘Oh,’ she stumbled, ‘nothing, it’s just it was funny. “Heart of stone.” What with you being a-’
Alarm flashed across Fil’s features and he shook his head curtly. She tailed off, flustered by the sudden, intense quiet.
‘Yes?’ Petris said again, with the slightest edge to his voice.
‘Nothing.’
Another dry-shale sigh. ‘Come here, child.’
Fil protested. ‘Petris, no — she didn’t mean-’
‘Keep your trousers on, Filius. I’m not going to hurt her. I merely think that she deserves to know which side she’s picked.’
Fil looked at the statue in chagrin for a moment, then hung his head. ‘Yeah, all right,’ he said quietly. He looked at Beth. ‘Go on.’
Beth walked hesitantly towards Petris, gooseflesh rippling over her.
The Pavement Priest’s brow and cowl had calcified together to a scabrous white. Beth could see what Fil had called a chisel job: a chunk of Petris’ nose and right cheek had been sheared off. As she got closer, she could make out two tiny pinhead holes at the centre of the glittering granite eyes.
‘Closer.’ Beth stared into those holes; she thought she saw something blink. She found her heart hammering.
‘Closer.’ His breath was stony dust.
She stopped an inch in front of his face. The statue’s mouth was half an inch ajar, and inside it…
Inside it she saw flesh lips, pink, parched and peeling. They moved to shape the words as Petris whispered, ‘Did no one ever teach you that it’s what’s inside that counts?’
‘How did you get in there?’ she breathed.
‘I was born here!’ Petris announced grandly. ‘All the Pavement Priests are, for our sins: caged since squalling infancy in our punishment-skins.’
