glass. Wallet secured he raced back through the house and left by the route he’d come: out of the door and through the tangle of bushes his mother had planted so many springs ago.
At the loft, he halted. He couldn’t take 33 and his mate with him, but he could at least give them a chance to escape if they wanted to. They did. They were flying back and forth in the frost-proofed cage he’d built for them, perfectly alive to their jeopardy. As soon as he opened the door they were out and into the air, rising through the snow until they found the safety of the clouds.
As he started along the embankment – not back towards the bridge but in the opposite direction – he realized that he might never again see the house he was leaving behind. The ache that thought awoke made the cold seem benign. He paused, and turned to try and hold the sight in his memory: the roof, the windows of his parents’ bedroom, the garden, the empty loft. This was the house in which he’d grown to adulthood; the house where he’d learned to be the man he was, for better or worse; here all his memories of Eileen and Brendan were rooted. But in the end it was just bricks and mortar; evil could take it as it had taken the Fugue.
As certain as he could be that he had the picture before him memorized, he headed off into the snow. Twenty yards on down the track a roar of destruction announced that he was a refugee.
Anon, 16th Century
I
A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS
1
f there was any pattern at all to the events of the day following, it was of reunions denied by chance, and of others just as capriciously granted.
Suzanna had decided the previous evening that she’d go up to Liverpool and re-establish contact with Cal. There was no use in circumspection now. Events were clearly approaching a crisis-point. Cal had to be warned, and plans made – the kind of plans that could only be made face to face – about how they could best protect Mimi’s book, and their lives, in the coming storm. She tried calling him ‘til about midnight, but nobody answered.
In the morning she rang Apolline, fresh from Salisbury, to tell her what she’d seen and learned at the Shrine of the Mortalities. She was prepared for Apolline to reject the information Immacolata’s spirit had offered, out of contempt for its source, but that proved not to be the case.
‘Why shouldn’t we believe it?’ she said, ‘If the dead can’t be honest, who can? Besides, it only confirms what we already knew.’
Suzanna told her she planned to go to Liverpool, and talk with Cal.
‘You won’t be alone up there,’ Apolline informed her. ‘Some people went looking for raptures in your grandmother’s house. You might want to find out if they had any luck.’
‘I’ll do that. I’ll call you when I’ve seen them.’
‘Don’t expect me to be sober.’
Before setting out Suzanna tried calling Chariot Street once more. This time her call received the number disconnected tone; the operator could not tell her why. The morning news bulletin would have answered the question, had she switched on the radio; the television would even have shown her pictures of the patch of blasted ground where the Mooney house had once stood. But she tuned in too late for the news, only catching the weather-report, which promised snow, and more snow.
Attempting the journey by car was, she knew, a certain disaster. Instead she took a taxi to Euston, and the mid-morning train North. Just about the time she was settling down for the four-hour trip to Liverpool Lime Street – which in fact took six – Cal was half way to Birmingham on the eight-twenty train via Runcorn and Wolverhampton.
2
He’d called Gluck from a telephone box at the Pier Head, where he’d gone following the confrontation in the fog. There was no particular plan in this: he’d just felt the need to go to the river, and the last night bus before dawn had taken him there. He’d slipped the Scourge, at least for the time being; he even entertained the thought that the creature might be satisfied with the devastation it had wrought. But his gut knew differently. The Angel – Shadwell’s
The wind off the river was bitter; the snow in it pricked his skin like needles. But he leaned on the railings and watched the water until his fingers and face were numb; then, with the clocks on the Liver Building all offering times in the vicinity of six, he went in search of sustenance. He was in luck. A small cafe was open, serving breakfast to the early-run bus drivers. He bought himself a substantial meal, thawing out as he ate his eggs and toast, still trying to sort out what was for the best. Then, around six-thirty, he tried to get through to Gluck. He hadn’t really expected any reply, but luck was with him, at least in this, for just as he was about to put the receiver down, the ‘phone at the other end was picked up.
‘Hello?’ said a sleep-thickened voice. Though Cal knew Gluck scarcely at all, he’d seldom, if ever, been so happy to make contact with someone.
‘Mr Gluck? It’s Cal Mooney. You probably won’t remember me, but –’
‘– of course I remember. How are things on the Mersey?’
‘I have to talk to you. It’s urgent.’
‘I’m all ears.’
‘I can’t on the ‘phone.’
‘Well, come and see me. Do you have my address?’
‘Yes. I’ve still got your card.’
‘Then come. I’d enjoy the company.’
These welcoming words, coming after the losses of the night, were almost too much; Cal felt his eyes pricking.
‘I’ll get the first train down,’ he said.
‘I’ll be here.’
Cal stepped out of the telephone box into the biting air. Daylight was still a while away; the snow-bound streets were almost deserted as he trudged up towards the station. A truck laboured through the gloom, spreading grit on the icy road; a newspaper vendor was laying out the early morning edition in the dubious shelter of a doorway; otherwise, he saw nobody. It was difficult to imagine, as he trudged, that there would ever be another spring in Spook City.
