of the oddities this reincarnation displayed. There were differences in behaviour, too, little quirks which had come to the fore. He’d watched Dariat quietly as they’d all walked up out of the tube station. There was a confidence about him that had been missing before; as if he was merely indulging his relatives rather than helping them. That deep anger had been expelled, too, replaced by sadness. Tolton wondered about that combination, sadness and confidence was a strange driving force. Probably quite volatile, too. But then given what poor old Dariat had been through in the last few weeks, that was eminently forgivable. Worthy of a verse or two, in fact. It had been a long time since Tolton had composed anything.
“We didn’t have a real long conversation on top of the lift,” Dariat said. “It was the kind of pressurized memory exchange I experienced in the beyond. The creature’s thoughts weren’t very stable.”
“You mean it knows about us?”
“I expect so. But don’t confuse knowing with being interested. Absorbing life-energy is all they exist for now.”
Erentz squinted after the receding Orgathй as it headed over the circumfluous sea. “We’d better get organized, I suppose.” She couldn’t have sounded less enthusiastic.
Dariat gave up on the dark invader, and looked around. A crowd of ghosts was hanging back from the cavern entrance, keeping among the larger boulders littering the desert. They regarded the little band of tenacious corporeal humans with grudging respect, avoiding direct eye contact like a shoplifter eluding the store detective.
“You!” Dariat barked suddenly. He started to march over the powdery sand. “Yes, you, shithead. Remember me, huh?”
Tolton and Erentz trailed after him, curious at this latest behaviour.
Dariat was closing on a ghost dressed in baggy overalls. It was the mechanic he’d encountered when he went searching for Tolton just after the habitat arrived in the dark continuum.
Recognition was mutual. The mechanic turned and ran. Ghosts parted to let him through their midst. Dariat chased after him, surprisingly fast for his bulk. As he passed through the huddle of ghosts they shivered and shuffled further away, gasping in shock at the cold he exuded.
Dariat caught hold of the mechanic’s arm, dragging him to a halt. The man screeched in pain and fear, flailing about, unable to escape Dariat’s grip. He started to grow more transparent.
“Dariat,” Tolton called. “Hey, come on, man, you’re hurting him.”
The mechanic had fallen to his knees, shaking violently as his colouring bled away. Dariat by contrast was almost glowing. He glowered down at his victim. “Remember? Remember what you did, shithead?”
Tolton drew up short, unwilling to touch his erstwhile friend. The memory of the cold he’d experienced back in the station was too strong.
“Dariat!” he shouted.
Dariat looked down at the mechanic’s withering face. Remorse opened his fingers, allowing the incorporeal arm to slip away. What would Anastasia say about such behaviour? “Sorry,” he muttered shamefully.
“What did you do to him?” Tolton demanded. The mechanic was barely visible. He’d curled up into a foetal position, half of his body sunk into the sand.
“Nothing,” Dariat blurted, ashamed of his action. The fluid which brought him solidity apparently came with an ugly price. He’d known it all along, simply refused to acknowledge it. Hatred had been an excuse, not a motivator. As with the Orgathй instinct was supplanting rationality.
“Oh, come on.” Tolton bent down and moved his hand through the whimpering ghost. The air felt slightly cooler, otherwise there was no trace that he existed. “What have you done?”
“It’s the fluid,” Dariat said. “It takes a lot to maintain myself now.”
“A lot of what?” Rhetorical question: Tolton knew without needing an answer.
“Life-energy. Just keeping going uses it up. I need to replenish. I don’t have a biology, I can’t breathe or eat a meal; I have to take it neat. And souls are a strong concentration.”
“What about him?” A tiny patina of silver frost was forming on the ground within the ghost’s vague outline. “What about this particular
“He’ll recover. There’s plants and stuff he can recoup the loss from. He did a lot worse to me, once.” No matter how much Dariat wanted, he couldn’t look away from the drained ghost. This is what we’re all going to end up like, he acknowledged. Pathetic emancipated remnants of what we are, clinging to our identity while the dark continuum depletes us until we’re a single silent voice weeping in the night. There’s no way out. Entropy is too strong here, drowning us away from the light.
And I was instrumental in bringing us here.
“Let’s get back inside,” Erentz said. “It’s about time we put you under the microscope, see if the physics gang can make any sense of you.”
Dariat thought about protesting. Eventually he just nodded meekly. “Sure.”
They walked back towards the cavern entrance, through the clutter of subdued ghosts. Two more Orgathй hatched from the Gonchraov starscraper lobby, tumbling up into the wan twilight sky.
There were vigilantes at Kings Cross station, hard young gang members drafted in from the low-cost residential estates scattered around the outer districts of Westminster Dome. Their uniforms went from pseudo- military to expensive business suits, denoting their differing membership. Ordinarily such a mixture was hypergolic. See/kill. And if civilians got caught in the line of fire, tough. In some cases, feuds between boroughs and individual gangs went back centuries. Today, they all wore a simple white ribbon prominently on their various lapels. It stood for Pure Soul, and united them in commitment. They were here to make sure all of London stayed pure.
Louise stepped off the vac-train carriage, yawning heavily. Gen leaned against her side, nearly sleepwalking as they moved away from the big airlock door. It was almost three in the morning, local time. She didn’t like to think how long she’d been up for now.
“What are you creeps doing getting off here?”
She hadn’t even noticed them until they stood in front of her. Two dark-skinned girls with shaved heads; the taller one had replaced her eyeballs with blank silver globes. Both of them wore identical plain black two-piece suits of some satin fabric. They didn’t have blouses; the jackets were fastened by a single button, exposing stomachs as muscular as any Norfolk field labourer. Their cleavage was the only way to tell they were female. Even then Louise wasn’t entirely sure, they might just be butched-up pectorals.
“Uh?” she managed.
“That train’s from Edmonton, babe. That’s where the possessed are. Is that why you left? Or are you here for some other reason, some kind of freako nightclub?”
Louise began to wake up fast. There were a lot of young people on the platform; some dressed in suits identical to the girls’ (the voice finally convinced her about gender), others in less formal clothes. None of them showed any inclination to embark on the newly arrived train. Several armour-suited police were clumped round the exit archway, with their shell—helmet visors raised. They were looking in her direction with some interest.
Ivanov Robson moved smoothly to stand at Louise’s side, his movement hinting at the same kind of inertia carried by an iceberg. He smiled with refined politeness. The gang girls didn’t flinch, exactly, but they were smaller now, somehow, less menacing.
“Is there a problem?” he asked quietly.
“Not for us,” the one with the silver eyes said.
“Good, then please stop hassling these young ladies.”
“Yeah? So what are you, their dad? Or maybe just their great big friend out for some fun tonight.”
“If that’s the best you can do, stop trying.”
“You didn’t answer my question, bigfoot man.”
“I’m a London resident. We all are. Not that it’s any of your concern.”
“Like fuck it isn’t, brother.”
“I’m not your brother.”
“Is your soul pure?”
“What are you all of a sudden, my confessor?”
“We’re guardians, not priests. Religion is fucked; it doesn’t know how to fight the possessed. We do.” She
