I remembered the dry voice. I?d forgotten the inhuman, puritanical calm.
?Yeah.?
?Gwillam here. What can I do for you??
I told him, and he laughed without any trace of humor. It was like hearing a corpse laugh.
?And is there anything else you?d like?? he asked, the irony in the words not making it through to the remorselessly level voice. ?Any dead relatives of yours we can intercede for? Or we could stop along the way and pick you up some pizza . . .?
?We?ll talk terms later, Gwillam,? I told him, in no mood for light banter. ?For now, just you go ahead and let the dogs out.?
I hung up, hard enough to split the plastic of the receiver.
Nineteen
I?M NOT GOOD AT WAITING. I NEVER HAVE BEEN. I?VE MET people who can switch into Zen mode when there?s nothing going on and just mentally hibernate until the toast pops up. I tend to be punching the walls after a while?or in the absence of walls, other people.
Basquiat had left me my watch, which was either a rare sign of humanity or the most insidious and refined torture. I looked at it often enough over the next few hours to wear a hole in the glass.
The day dragged on, like a glacier fingernailing its way down a mountain. I couldn?t settle to the car reviews again, so I found myself leaning on the windowsill looking out across Highgate Hill, where the sun, shot down in terrible slo-mo, made the sky over Marx?s tomb flare a deep enough red to have satisfied even him.
Maybe that red sky was an omen of some kind?happy shepherds notwithstanding. Just before the sun touched the horizon there was a sound like the clapping of God?s hands, followed by an endlessly prolonged scream-cough-scream of breaking glass.
The fire alarms went off all over the building, including one just outside my door that drowned out any sounds from farther away. I felt the vibrations of running footsteps, though; then immediately afterward there were shouts in the corridor outside. I heard some kind of bellowed challenge or warning, cut short as something hit the door with enough force to pop the top hinge.
The door leaned inward an inch or so, and then a second impact made it topple forward into the room, crashing down a few inches from my startled face. One of the uniformed constables came down with it, obviously unconscious even though his glazed eyes were still half-open. Even though it was the one who?d tossed his small change onto the floor so I had to grovel for it, I still felt a twinge of compassion for him. But it passed.
The werewolves, Zucker and Po, stepped over the body. Zucker was in human form?or what passed for human form with him. Po was a monstrous tower of flesh, the remains of a torn shirt still clinging to his barrel-like torso in strips here and there. An unfeasible array of yellow-white fangs bristled in his face, drawing my gaze so completely that the other features became a sliding blur as he lumbered past me to check that the unfortunate cop wasn?t likely to get up again soon.
Zucker flashed me a scary smile.
?We were in the neighborhood,? he said. ?Thought we?d drop in.?
?And me without a cake,? I mourned.
?We don?t eat cake. You got anything you need to pick up on the way??
I shook my head. I?d have dearly loved to get my own clothes back, but I had no idea where Basquiat would have stashed them. I was just going to have to get by.
Po loomed over me, and Zucker flicked him an appraising glance. ?You know that Olympic event where people walk really fast?? he asked me.
?I?ve heard of it.?
?Well that?s what you?ve got to do. If you run, my friend here is apt to knock you down, step on your head and rip your guts out. It?s his way. But we
He turned and led the way out of the room. I followed, and Po brought up the rear like a walking wall. Except that walls mostly have graffiti rather than spines, fangs, and slavering jaws.
The other cop was slumped out in the corridor, the scattered pages of a pink racing paper bearing silent witness against him. Not that he?d have had a much better chance if he?d seen the loup-garous coming: I had a suspicion that you?d need something on the scale of a howitzer even to slow Po down.
The alarms were still screaming, filling the air to the exclusion of everything else. I was sort of assuming that they were a default distress signal, but I realized as we reached the short flight of steps at the end of the corridor that the building was actually on fire. At least, the level below us was full of smoke that hung heavily in the air in visible layers, and there was an acrid, chemical smell that took a lot of the fun out of breathing.
We came down into an open space lined with chairs?a waiting area of some kind for one of the Whittington?s specialist units. Zucker hesitated, then pointed to the far side of the room and headed off in that direction. I followed, at a constrained jog- trot. I didn?t want Po trampling me under from behind, and I wanted still less for him to get a mental image of me as a rubber bone.
There were three sets of lift doors in a row. Zucker pressed the down buttons on all three, and the middle one slid open immediately. Po pushed me forward and I staggered in. Zucker glanced off to the left and right, then backed in himself and hit the ground floor button.
?If the power goes, we?ll fry in here,? I told him, the thought genuinely making my stomach turn over slightly. I?ve got just a touch of claustrophobia that surfaces every now and again when I?m in enclosed spaces with semihuman monsters that smell like old, damp carpets.
?Not a problem,? Zucker said tersely. ?Trust me.?
The doors slid open again and we came out fast into a wide corridor, Zucker still taking point. The ground floor was like some kind of vision of hell. The smoke was thicker here, shutting my line of sight down to my own arm?s length, and the chemical stench was worse. There were a whole lot of other sounds now beneath the wail of the alarm: screams, shouted orders, the scrape and thud of booted feet. No footsteps from behind me, though. I looked round, and saw that Po?s feet were as bare as mine. The last vestiges of his clothes had sloughed away now, and with them whatever laughably slim chance there?d been of him passing for human. Even if he got his errant flesh under control, he?d be stark bollock naked.
I collided with a wheelchair that was just sitting in the corridor, almost went over on my face. Po snarled warningly: he clearly took my breaking stride as a provocative act. ?How are we getting out of here?? I called out to Zucker, who was a good few yards ahead of us on account of not having to worry about losing major limbs and organs.
?Trust in God,? he suggested. I looked at him curiously, but he was forging on down the broad corridor without looking behind, so that all I could see was the back of his head. There was no trace of irony in his tone.
?Not usually an option for me.?
?But now you?re in His hands.?
A pair of large doors were in front of us. Zucker kicked them open and went on through, into an atrium of some kind. The higher ceiling made the fumes dance in hypnotic convection currents like curdled milk in coffee. My head was spinning, my stomach heaving. Neither of the loup-garous seemed to be affected at all.
I lost sight of Zucker almost at once, but he hadn?t gone far. When I stepped through after him his hand shot out of the fug and gripped my wrist. His voice sounded close to my ear.
?Stay close to me,? he muttered. ?If we have to leave you behind, we?ve been told it?s okay to kill you. Po is hoping it pans out that way, but I prefer to stick to the script as far as possible.?
It occurred to me to wonder what Zucker looked like when he made the change into his animal form. He obviously had a lot more self-control than his partner. I decided that I didn?t want to be around when that self-control snapped.
He hauled me after him into the thunder-gray semidark. I presumed that Po was still with us, but I couldn?t see him anymore. I couldn?t see anything. It seemed like the whole place was ablaze, although I suddenly realized I hadn?t seen any flames, felt any heat.
Suddenly a face loomed out of the smoke: a security guard, in full uniform, wielding a futile torch that did nothing but reflect off the churning billows. The guard saw us as we saw him, and opened his mouth to yell.
Po leapt more or less directly over my head, landing full on the guy?s chest. He went down hard. Then Zucker was on top of Po, grappling with him. ?Leave him!? he snapped. ?Leave him, brother! Let God find him out! Let God judge!? There were grunts, and scuffling, and then a full-throated roar from Po.
For a moment I thought I could give them the slip. That would make life a lot simpler. But stepping sideways in the stinking gloom, with the shrilling of the alarm still jangling my thoughts, I bumped straight into a wall. Then the alarm stopped, abruptly, leaving the appalling vacuum of silence to rush in and claim the space where it had been. After-echoes died away and were swallowed in the deadening fog.
Zucker?s arm clamped down on my shoulder, whatever altercation he?d had with Po presumably settled.
?It?s this way,? he said again, with an undertone of warning.
We moved forward.
