'I know. It's a metaphor.' Mallory plucked the ice cube from his glass, placed it in his mouth and began to crunch it up. 'Stevens thinks he's smart, but he's not. He's a thug, an East End barrow boy made bad. He's no match for my educated, wily ways.'
'Educated? You dropped out,' Mueller said. 'But he's got one thing you haven't. He believes in what he's doing. You watch yourself, Mallory.'
'You're such a moaner, Mueller. Moan, moan, moan.' The engineer checked the balance by playing an oldie on Mallory's decks. 'Beth Orton remixed by the Chemical Brothers,' he noted. 'Good taste for a monkey.' There was a plaintive element to the song that made him introspective. 'Do you ever get the feeling that the world isn't the way it should be?' he said, lost to his thoughts.
'What do you mean?'
'Which word don't you understand?'
Mueller sipped his drink quietly. He'd been here so many times over the years, he knew better than to get riled by anything Mallory said.
When Mallory saw that he wasn't going to bite, he made a face and continued, 'Look at it — what a sour, miserable existence. If there is a God, is this the best He can do? A place where people like Stevens thrive.' He grew introspective again. 'Sometimes I think this is all an illusion… a mess… and there's a better world somewhere behind it. Sometimes, if you catch this world sleeping, you can look at it just right and see straight through it to that good place on the other side.'
'Sylvie's addled your mind, Mallory.' Mueller tittered.
'Shut up, Mueller. You never did have any sense. I don't know why I ever took you on board.'
Doors opened on to rooms that vaguely resembled ones he had passed through before, though each had a slight difference — a carving, a gargoyle, a column. There was stone and shadows, and dust, steeped in antiquity and quiet centuries of deep reverence, where no words were uttered but thoughts were offered up to the heart of Existence. There were chapels and vaults, tombs and halls, galleries and corridors, places of sanctity and places that felt alien and unwelcoming.
Mallory crashed through them all, knowing that if he slowed Hipgrave would be behind him, but never quite managing to lessen the distance between him and Stefan. He had the unnerving feeling that sooner or later he would forget the reason for running, that it would simply be something he did, like eating and breathing.
And each new doorway provided a new room, a new sensation, a new way of looking at life, and each time he lost a little bit more of who he was.
'You do it,' Stevens said, 'or that little waitress you like gets taken out back by my boys, done over, then popped in the head and dumped in the river. Do you hear me, you little fucker?'
Mallory picked himself up off the floor. His ribs felt as if someone had stuffed a firework in them. 'You really think I'd do something like that?'
Stevens smiled slyly. 'Well, I don't really know. I suppose we'll see, won't we? I mean, I'm just a thick boy from Bow — what do I know? You're the one with the good education. I expect you'll be putting me straight sometime soon.'
'Irony works best in a single sentence. You spoil the effect when you drag it out.' Mallory wiped his mouth with the back of his hand; it left a dark smear.
Stevens didn't have to retaliate for the attitude; he knew he had Mallory between a rock and a hard place. He simply watched and smiled, relishing his position of absolute power.
'You've got to be joking,' Mallory said, starting to realise with mounting horror that Stevens wasn't.
Stevens shrugged. 'Well, bang goes your bitch — in more ways than one.'
Mallory began to back-pedal. 'Now, look-'
'No. Let's not look. Let's deal with the offer on the table. It's simple — even I can understand it. You can do this… or this.'
'I'll do anything else. You wanted a cut of the takings-
Stevens made a dismissive hand gesture. 'That's all gone now. This is what's happening.'
'But… but… it doesn't make any sense. You don't get anything out of this-'
'Well, that's where you're wrong, my son.' His expression told Mallory everything: what he got was the brutish satisfaction of seeing Mallory torn apart by a choice no one could ever make without being destroyed.
'What you want me to do — it's inhuman.'
'Yes, it is, isn't it?'
Mallory felt as if he was drowning.
'A couple of other things while you… ruminate… that's a word, isn't it? You try to run, the waitress gets it. You do anything at all apart from what I've asked you and she gets it. Anything at all. But you do what I ask and everything'!! be sweet.'
Mallory's mouth was dry. He couldn't see Stevens any more, just the horrendous images playing across his own internal screen. 'How do I know you won't kill Sylvie anyway?' he said, dazed.
'I'm an honourable man, Mallory. I stand by old-fashioned values — I'm not a slippery, fast-talking fucking intellectual like you. When I give my word, that's it. I believe in die things that made this country great. The world now, it's gone to pot. Being honourable, that's all we've got to hold everything together.'
The irony would have been funny if Mallory hadn't felt like being sick.
Things changed as he emerged from a tiny door into a room that contained an enormous subterranean reservoir. Echoes of lapping water bounced off the walls, while light from an unidentified source provided shimmerings in the gloom. Walkways crisscrossed the stone tank, but they were barely wider than a man and it would be impossible to run along them without slipping into the black water of unknown depth.
Stefan was making his way cautiously across the network of paths, unbalanced by the box he was carrying. If Mallory was careful he would be able to make up lost ground.
Watching his feet, he stepped out on to the nearest walkway and moved as quickly as he could. Where the shadows were thickest the water looked like oil. But in some places, where the mysterious light fell across it, he had a perception of depth, and he had the unnerving sensation that things were moving in it. Stefan, too, appeared to have noticed the same thing, for he regularly cast worried glances into the water on either side.
As he passed the first crossway, he realised he was indeed closing on Stefan, who was edging forwards very slowly, as much for fear of what might lie in the water as of falling in. Mallory's growing confidence was shattered when he glanced to his left and saw, floating an inch or so below the water, a woman who appeared maddeningly familiar yet had no place in his life as he knew it. He was overcome with a feeling of affection, even love, but the woman's eyes were wide and accusing.
Other bodies drifted silently nearby, and although he thought of them as bodies, another part of him was convinced they were alive in some way he couldn't explain. They, too, were at the same time recognisable and not.
The shock of seeing them there like dead fish almost made him lose his footing, and he feared what would happen if he fell in amongst them. He was only distracted from his uneasy thoughts when he realised there was a disturbance in the water around Stefan. Rising on every side were the cowled figures of the dead clerics from the ossuary.
Stefan cowered before them, terrified, as if he knew why they were there for him. 'I have nothing to fear from you!' he cried out, his voice reverberating insanely up to the vaulted roof. As one, the clerics each raised an arm and pointed at him. Their silent accusation gave Stefan added impetus and he bowed his head and hurried past them.
Mallory ignored the figures in the water around him and followed quickly, allowing just one glance back. Hipgrave was on the walkway, shifting back to his human form from something that had wings like a bat.
Mallory realised there probably wouldn't be an escape for any of them.
'I'd do anything for Sylvie.' Mallory blinked away tears of frustration and pain.
'You think she'd be happy with you, knowing what you'd done?' Mueller was incredulous. 'Stevens has won. Whichever way you turn, you're damned.'
'She doesn't have to know-'
'She already knows. One of Stevens' monkeys told her this morning. He's just turning the knife-'
'How do you know?' Mallory leaned back against his bookcase for support, as if gravity was suddenly too strong for him to keep standing.
