“Hilary Mould owned all of the land on which the buildings were constructed,” explained Maria. “He came from a very wealthy family; at one point, the Moulds collected rent from half of Biddlecombe. Mould then offered to design the buildings and contributed half of the cost of construction himself. Biddlecombe didn’t really need a prison or a lunatic asylum, or even a visitor center—it didn’t have very many prisoners, only a couple of people who qualified as even slightly odder than usual, and hardly anybody ever came to visit—but getting some new buildings at a bargain price seemed like a good idea to everyone. And then, when the final stone was laid, Hilary Mould simply vanished.”

Professor Stefan shook his head in bemusement.

“But why bother?” he said. “I mean, what’s the point of creating some kind of notional star in the town of Biddlecombe?”

Behind him, Dorothy coughed. It was a very deep cough. It sounded like a gorilla had just stepped into the room and politely wanted to be noticed.

“I might be wrong,” said Dorothy, “but it looks like he was building a vast occult generator. You know, a kind of supernatural power station.”

“But powered by what?” asked Professor Hilbert, annoyed that he had been upstaged by a female for the second time that day.

“Death and suffering,” said Dorothy. “You have a battlefield, a prison, an asylum, a crematorium, and Mr. Pennyfarthinge’s Sweete Factorye or, more particularly, Uncle Dabney’s line in unpleasant eating experiences.”

“It would explain a lot,” said Maria, who was impressed by Dorothy’s insights, and regarded them as another blow struck for feminism. “Like how Biddlecombe became the focus for the invasion from Hell. It couldn’t simply have been the Abernathys and their friends messing about in a cellar with things that they didn’t understand.38 They weren’t powerful enough, and it made no sense that what was happening at CERN in Switzerland should have found an outlet in Biddlecombe.39 It was because of Mould and his buildings.”

“But Mould couldn’t have known that, more than a century in the future, someone would construct the Large Hadron Collider and turn it on,” said Professor Stefan. “He couldn’t even have imagined people would own watches that didn’t need winding, or shoes with wheels in the heels.”

“Perhaps he didn’t, but something else did,” said Maria. “Something much older, something that had been watching humanity for a long, long time, something with a lot of patience and a lot of anger. It guided Mould in the creation of the pentagram, and then added one more building for luck.”

She was about to place her finger at the heart of the pentagram, but Dorothy beat her to it.

“Wreckit & Sons,” said Dorothy.

They all remained silent for a few moments. They might have remained silent for a good deal longer had the quiet not been broken by the sound of a scream and a tea boy’s feet running very, very fast.

“What is wrong with that boy now?” said Professor Stefan. “Honestly, he’ll be jumping at the sight of his own shadow next.”

• • •

Interestingly for Brian—although “terrifyingly for Brian” might have been more apt—he was in the process of doing just that as Professor Stefan spoke. To begin with, he’d been relieved to find that the not-ghost in the red robe wasn’t chasing him. He’d taken a couple of glances over his shoulder as he ran, and there was no sign of pursuit. There was just his shadow extending behind him, the way a shadow should.

Unfortunately, his shadow quickly began catching up with him before passing him entirely and finally separating itself from his shoes and assuming a “this far and no farther” position in front of him. It stretched as he watched, growing both wider and taller, until it entirely blocked his way. It also had more substance than a shadow should. Brian thought that, if he poked it with his finger, it would feel like a big, dirty marshmallow, and his finger would be returned to him stained with black, if it was returned at all.

A crack opened in the shadow’s head. It might have been mistaken for a smile, but only the kind of smile that a cannibal might wear before tucking into dinner. Teeth appeared in the mouth; they were sharp but wispy, as though the smoke from a series of recently blown-out candles had solidified. A clawed hand reached for Brian, and he ducked just in time to avoid having it close upon his skull. Since he was now heading in the direction of the floor, Brian decided simply to keep going. He dived through the shadow’s legs, somersaulted to his feet behind it, surprising himself almost as much as the creature, and recommenced running and screaming. Meanwhile the creature, clearly deciding that two massive arms ending in jagged claws weren’t enough for the job, began sprouting a third and a fourth, and grew another head while it was about it, since you never knew when a second head might come in useful. Then, seemingly content with these improvements, it returned to the task of trying to consume Brian.

It was at this point that Professor Stefan opened the door to the main laboratory with every intention of giving Brian a stern talking-to about the importance of not mewling and squealing at the slightest sign of Multiversal activity. He got as far as saying “Now look here—” before he took in the sight of a terrified Brian being pursued by a giant, multiarmed and dual-headed shadow monster.

“Never mind,” said Professor Stefan.

He held the door open for Brian and, as soon as the tea boy was safely inside, slammed it shut.

“Wibble,” said Brian. “Wibble, wibble wibble.”

He then promptly fainted as wisps of dark matter began seeping through the keyhole.

37. Biddlecombe had been the site of a famous encounter in A.D. 817 between Vikings led by Bolverk the Wary, and Saxons led by Oswald the Uncertain. It took quite some time for the battle to get started, and fighting was believed to have commenced only after both sides backed into each other in the dark.

38. In The Gates, Samuel discovered the Abernathys and their friends trying to summon up demons in the cellar of a house. I really should be charging you extra for this.

39. Take that, critics. You thought I was just making all this stuff up as I went along, but there was a plan, I tell you, a plan! (Cue maniacal laughter, and a gibbering henchman calling me “Master!” in an admiring way.)

XIX

In Which Wreckit & Sons Reopens, and There Is Much Joy and Good Cheer. (Part of This Chapter Heading May Be a Lie.)

AT PRECISELY 6:55 P.M., thousands of lights exploded into Christmas cheer on the front of Wreckit & Sons, bathing the crowd gathered below in green and white and gold. There was a collective “Ooooh!” of appreciation, which rose in volume as a grinning Father Christmas formed by red bulbs appeared at the heart of the display, the arrangement of the lights changing as the crowd watched, so that Father Christmas’s lips seemed to move, although no sound emerged from them, not yet. In truth, he didn’t look like a very jolly Father Christmas. His face was a bit too pinched and thin for that, and his eyes were little more than narrow slits. As the lights continued to make his lips move, he looked as though he were threatening a child with something considerably worse than an absence of gifts on Christmas morning. He also, it had to be said, bore more than a passing resemblance to the statue of Hilary Mould.

But any doubts about Father Christmas were overwhelmed by the spectacle unfolding on Biddlecombe High Street. The dark cloths that had so far masked the windows fell away to reveal the most wondrous displays. Polar bears carried gifts on their backs across fields of pure white snow. There were scenes from fairy tales being enacted by mannequins: Snow White accepted a poisoned apple from her wicked stepmother disguised as an unspeakably ugly witch; a huge wolf in a nightdress towered above Red Riding Hood; a troll threatened three billy goats; and another wolf was proving that 66 percent of little pigs were not very good at building houses. They weren’t exactly cheerful moments from the history of fairy tales, and there was more blood and gore than was strictly necessary: it was clear that Red Riding Hood’s grandmother had already met a nasty end, for the wolf was holding her severed head in one of its paws; the troll wore a necklace of billy-goat skulls; and one of the three little pigs was missing most of its lower body, the rest having been reduced to a pile of bacon by a large, steam- powered bacon slicer. But they were very well done, even if it would have been nice had someone taken the time

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