The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 19

him.

Pith Helmet, who had a cardboard handlebar moustache like Zebedee from The Magic Roundabout, rose on ice-column legs and stalked towards Leech, burly white arms sprouting to displace feeble sticks, wicked icicles extruding from powdery fists.

Tarn and Bee-Alice circled round, making as if to trap Richard and Leech in the line of fire.

Richard got up, grabbed Leech's arm, and pulled him away from Pith Helmet. It was hard to run in polar gear, but they stumped past Tarn and Bee-Alice before the circle closed, and legged it around the main building.

Another snowman loomed up in front of them. In a postman's cap, with a mailbag slung over its shoulder. It was a larger and looser thing than the others, more hastily made, with no face coals or carrot. They barrelled into the shape, which came apart, and sprawled in a tangle on the cold, cold ground — Richard felt the bite of black ice through his gauntlets as the heel of his hand jammed against grit. Under him was a dead but loose- limbed postman, grey-blue in the face, crackly frost in his hair. He had been inside the snowman.

The others were marching around the corner. Were there people inside them too? Somehow, they were frowning — perhaps it was in the angle of their headgear, as if brows were narrowed — and malice burned cold in their eye-coals.

Leech was on his feet first, hauling Richard upright.

Snow crawled around the postman again, forming a thick carapace. The corpse stood like a puppet, dutifully taking up its bag and cap, insistent on retaining its identity.

They were trapped between the snowmen. The five walking, hat-topped heaps had them penned.

Richard was tense, expecting ice-daggers to rip through his furs and into his heart. Leech reached into his snowsuit as if searching for his wallet — in this situation, money wasn't going to be a help. A proper Devil would have some hellfire about his person. Or at least a blowtorch. Leech — who had recorded a series of anti-smoking adverts — managed to produce a flip-top cigarette lighter. He made a flame, which didn't seem to phase the snowmen, and wheeled around, looking for the one to negotiate with. Leech was big on making deals.

'Try Top Hat,' suggested Richard. 'In cartoon terms, he's obviously the leader.'

Leech held the flame near Top Hat's face. Water trickled, but froze again, giving Top Hat a tear streaked, semi-transparent appearance. A slack face showed inside the ice.

'Who's in there?' asked Leech. 'Cleaver?'

Top Hat made no motion.

A door opened, and a small, elderly man leaned out of the research station. He wore a striped scarf and a blue knit cap.

'No, Mr Leech,' said Professor Richard Cleaver, 'I'm in here. You lot, let them in, now. You've had your fun. For the moment.'

The snowmen stood back, leaving a path to the back door. Cleaver beckoned, impatient.

'Do come on,' he said. 'It's fweezing out.'

Richard looked at Leech and shrugged. The gesture was matched. They walked towards the back door.

The last snowman was Bee-Alice. As they passed, it reared up like a kid pretending to be a monster, and stuck out yard-long pseudo-pods of gleaming ice, barbed with jagged claws. Then it retracted its arms and silently chortled at the shivering humans.

'That one's a comedian,' said Cleaver. 'You have to watch out.'

Leech squeezed past the Professor, into the building. Richard looked at the five snowmen, now immobile and innocent-seeming.

'Come on, whoever you are,' urged Cleaver. 'What are you waiting for? Chwistmas?'

Richard slipped off his sun-visor, then followed Leech.

II

'You in the van, wakey wakey,' shouted someone, who was also hammering on the rear doors. 'The world needs saving…'

'Again?' mumbled Jamie Chambers, waking up with another heat-headache and no idea of the time. Blackout shields on the windows kept out the daylight. Living in gloom was part of the Shade Legacy. He didn't even need Dad's night-vision goggles — which were around here somewhere — to see well enough in the dark.

He sorted through stiff black T-shirts for the freshest, then lay on his back and stuck his legs in the air to wriggle into skinny jeans. Getting dressed in the back of the van without doing himself an injury was a challenge. Sharp metal flanges underlay the carpet of sleeping bags, and any number of dangerous items were haphazardly hung on hooks or stuffed into cardboard boxes. When Bongo Foxe, the drummer in Transhumance, miraculously gained a girlfriend, he'd tactfully kicked Jamie out of the squat in Portobello Road. The keys and codes to Dad's old lair inside Big Ben were around somewhere, but Jamie could never get used to the constant ticking. Mum hated that too. Between addresses, the Black Van was his best option.

'Ground Control to Major Shade,' called the hammerer, insistent and bored at the same time. Must be a copper.

'Hang on a mo,' said Jamie, 'I'm not decent.'

'Hear that, Ness?' said the hammerer to a (female?) colleague. 'Shall I pop the lock and give you a cheap thrill?'

One of the few pluses of van living, supposedly, was that gits like this couldn't find you. Jamie guessed he was being rousted by gits who could find anybody. For the second time this week. He'd already listened to Leech's twist, Heather Wilding. This'd be the other shower, the Diogenes Club. One of the things Jamie agreed with his father about was that it made sense to stay out of either camp and make your own way in the night.

Even parked in eternal shadow under railway arches, the van was like a bread oven with central heating. The punishing summer continued. After seconds, his T-shirt was damp. Within minutes, it'd be soaked and dried. This last six weeks, he'd sweated off pounds. Vron was freaked by how much his skeleton was showing.

He ran fingers through his crispy shock of raven hair (natural), checked a shaving mirror for blackheads (absent), undid special locks the hammerer oughtn't have been able to pop, and threw open the doors.

A warrant card was held in his face. Frederick Regent, New Scotland Yard (Detached). He was in plainclothes — blue jeans, red Fred Perry (with crimson sweat patches), short hair, surly look. He couldn't have been more like a pig if he'd been oinking and had a curly tail. The girlfriend was a surprise — a red-haired bird with a Vogue face and a Men Only figure. She wore tennis gear — white plimsolls, knee-socks, shorts cut to look like a skirt, bikini top, Cardin cardigan — with matching floppy hat, milk-blank sunglasses (could she see through those?) and white lipstick.

'I'm Fred, this is Vanessa,' said the Detached man. 'You are James Christopher Chambers?'

'Jamie,' he said.

Vanessa nodded, taking in his preference. She was the sympathetic one. Fred went for brusque. It was an approach, if tired.

'Jamie,' said Fred, 'we understand you've come into a doctorate?'

'Don't use it,' he said, shaking his head. 'It was my old man's game.'

'But you have the gear,' said Vanessa. She reached into the van and took Dad's slouch hat off a hook. 'This is a vintage 'Dr Shade' item.'

'Give that back,' said Jamie, annoyed.

Vanessa handed it over meekly. He stroked the hat as if it were a kitten, and hung it up again. There was family history in the old titfer.

'At his age, he can't really be a doctor,' said Fred. 'Has there ever been an Intern Shade?'

'I'm not a student,' he protested.