Perdido Street Station (51 page)

Mr. X walked over to
the window to rearrange the shutters.

"So, look..."
Isaac tried to collate his thoughts. There were a hundred thousand
things he wanted to ask, but one was absolutely pressing. "So
Doctor Barbile...
how do we catch them?"

**

Barbile looked up at
him and began to shake her head. She glanced up briefly, between
Isaac and Derkhan who loomed over her like anxious parents, past
Lemuel who stood to the side, studiously ignoring her. Her eyes found
Mr. X, who was standing by the uncovered window. He had opened it a
little, was reaching out to pull in the shutters.

He was standing quite
still, looking out.

Magesta Barbile looked
over his shoulder at a nickering wash of midnight colours.

Her eyes glazed. Her
voice froze.

Something was battering
at the window, trying to reach the light.

Barbile rose, as Lemuel
and Isaac and Derkhan flocked to her in concern, asking what was
wrong, unable to understand her little cries. Her hand rose, shaking,
to point to the paralysed figure of Mr.X.

"Oh Jabber..."
she whispered. "Oh dear Jabber, it’s found me, it’s
tasted me..."

And then she shrieked,
and spun on her heels.

"The mirror!"
she screamed as she did so. "Look in the mirror!"

Her tone was fraught
and utterly commanding. They obeyed her. She spoke with such
desperate authority that not one of them succumbed to the instinct to
turn and see.

The four of them gazed
into the mirror behind the tattered sofa. They watched transfixed.

Mr. X was stepping
backwards with the mindless tramp of a zombie.

Behind him, there was a
dark flurry of colour. A terrible shape squeezed and folded in on
itself to push its organic folds and spines and bulk through the
little window. A blunt eyeless head poked itself through the opening
and turned slowly from side to side. The impression was of an
impossible birth. The thing that loomed through the space in the
glass had made itself small and intricate by contracting in
invisible, impossible directions. It shimmered unreally under the
strain, hauling its glistening carcass through the opening, arms
emerging from its dark bulk to push and strain against the window
frame.

Behind the glass those
half-hidden wings boiled.

The creature pushed
suddenly and the window disintegrated. There was only a small, dry
sound, as if the air was leeched of substance. Nuggets of glass
sprayed the room.

Isaac watched,
transfixed. He trembled.

At the edge of his
vision he saw Derkhan and Lemuel and Barbile in the same state.
This
is madness!
he thought.
We’ve got to get out of here!
He reached out and plucked at Derkhan’s sleeve, began to pick
his way towards the door.

Barbile seemed
paralysed. Lemuel pulled at her.

None of them knew why
she had said to look in the mirror, but none of them turned around.

And then as they
faltered towards the door, they froze again, because the thing in the
room stood.

**

In a sudden flowering
motion it rose behind them, filling the mirror into which they gazed,
aghast.

They could see the back
of Mr. X, who stood and gazed at the patterns on those wings,
patterns that rolled with hypnagogic haste, the colour cells under
the creature’s skin pulsing in weird dimensions.

Mr. X stepped back to
see the wings better. They could not see his face.

The slake-moth held him
in thrall.

It was taller than a
bear. A clutch of sharp extrusions like dark cartilaginous whips
blossomed from its sides and flickered out towards him. Other,
smaller, sharper limbs flexed like claws.

The creature stood on
legs like monkey’s arms. Three pairs jutted from its trunk. It
stood now bipedally, now on four legs, now on six.

It reared up on its
lower legs and a sharp tail slithered forward from between its legs
for balance. Its face—

(Always those huge
irregular wings, curving in strange directions, shifting in shape to
fit the room, each as random and inconstant as oil on water, each a
perfect reflection of the other, kept gently moving, their patterns
changing, flickering in a seductive tide.)

It had no eyes that
they could recognize, only two deep sunken hollows sprouting thick,
flexing antennae like stubby fingers, above rows of huge slab-teeth.
As Isaac watched, it cocked its head and opened that unimaginable
mouth, and from it a huge, prehensile, slavering tongue unrolled.

It waved quickly
through the air. Its end was coated in clumps of gossamer alveoli
that pulsed as the enormous thing flailed like an elephant’s
trunk.

"It’s trying
to find
me,"
wailed Barbile, and broke, and ran for the
door.

Instantly the
slake-moth flickered its tongue towards the movement. There was a
succession of motions far too quick to see. Some cruel organic jag
snapped out and passed through Mr. X’s head as if through
water. Mr. X shuddered suddenly and just as the blood began to well
explosively through the sliced bone the slake-moth reached out with
four of its arms, pulled him briefly closer and hurled him across the
room.

He flew through the air
trailing gore and bone-shards like a comet. He died before he landed.

Mr. X’s carcass
slammed into Barbile’s back, sending her sprawling. He landed
heavy and lifeless across the door. His eyes were open.

Lemuel, Isaac and
Derkhan broke for the door.

They were shouting
simultaneously in a cacophony of registers.

Lemuel leapt over
Barbile, who lay supine and desperate, trying to kick free of Mr. X’s
huge torso. She rolled onto her back and cried out for help. Isaac
and Derkhan reached her simultaneously, and began to tug at her arms.
Her eyes were tight closed.

But as they pushed Mr.
X’s body free and Lemuel kicked it savagely out of the way of
the door, a hard, rubbery tentacle snaked into their vision and
wrapped with a whiplash motion around Barbile’s feet. She felt
it and began to scream.

Derkhan and Isaac
pulled hard. There was a moment of resistance, and then the
slake-moth yanked at her with its tendril. Barbile was whisked out of
Derkhan and Isaac’s grasp with humbling ease. She slid at
breakneck speed along the floor, splinters tearing at her.

She began to scream.

Lemuel had forced the
door open, and he raced out and away down the stairs without glancing
back. Isaac and Derkhan stood quickly. They turned their heads
simultaneously to look into the mirror.

Both gave a little cry
of horror.

Barbile was squirming
and screaming in the complex embrace of the slake-moth. Limbs and
folds of flesh caressed her. She wriggled and her arms were held, she
kicked out and her legs were pinioned.

The huge creature
turned its head gently to one side, seemed to regard her with hunger
and curiosity. It emitted tiny, obscene noises.

Its final pair of hands
crept up and began to finger Barbile’s eyes. It touched them
gently. It began trying to prise them open.

Barbile shrieked and
wailed and begged for help, and Isaac and Derkhan stood paralysed,
gazing into the mirror, transfixed.

With hands shaking
violently, Derkhan reached into her jacket and brought out her
pistol, primed and ready. Staring resolutely into the looking-glass,
she pointed her gun behind her. Her hand wavered as she desperately
sought to aim in this impossible fashion.

Isaac saw what she was
doing, and reached quickly for his own gun. He was quicker to pull
the trigger.

There was a sharp bang
of igniting black powder. The ball burst from his muzzle and passed
harmlessly over the slake-moth’s head. The creature did not
even look up. Barbile screamed at the sound, and began to beg,
eloquently and horrendously, for them to shoot her.

Derkhan set her mouth
and tried to steady her arm.

She fired. The
slake-moth whirled and its wings shook. It opened that cavernous maw
and a foul, strangulated hissing emerged, a whispered shriek. Isaac
saw a tiny hole in the papery tissue of the left wing.

Barbile cried out and
waited a moment, then realized that she was still alive and began to
scream again.

The slake-moth turned
on Derkhan. Two of its whip arms flailed across the seven feet
separating them and smacked petulantly across her back. There was an
almighty cracking sound. Derkhan was thrown through the open door,
her breath pushed violently through her lungs. She wailed as she
fell.

"Don’t look
round!" screamed Isaac. "Go! Go! I’m coming!"

He tried not to hear
Barbile begging. He did not have time to reload.

As he made his way
slowly for the door, praying that the creature would continue to
ignore him, he watched what unfolded in the mirror.

He refused to process
it. It was, for now, a mindless slick of images. Later he might
consider it, if he left this house alive and found his way home, to
his friends, if he survived to plan, he would think on what he was
seeing.

But for now he
carefully thought of nothing as he saw the slake-moth turn its
attention back to the woman held fast in its arms. He thought of
nothing as he saw it force open her eyes with slender simian fingers
and thumbs, heard her scream until she vomited with fear and then
stop all her noises very suddenly as she caught sight of the flexing
patterns on the slake-moth’s wings. Saw those wings gently
widen and stretch taut into a hypnotic canvas, saw Barbile’s
entranced expression as her eyes widened to gaze on those morphing
colours; saw her body relax and the slake-moth drool in vile
anticipation, its unspeakable tongue unrolling again out of that
gaping mouth and snaking its way up Barbile’s saliva-spattered
shirt to her face, her eyes still glazed in idiot ecstasy at those
wings. Saw the feathered tip of the tongue nuzzle gently against
Barbile’s face, her nose, her ears and then shove suddenly,
forcefully past her teeth into her mouth
(and Isaac retched even
as he tried to think of nothing),
thrusting at indecent speed
into her face, her eyes bulging as more and more of the tongue
disappeared into her.

And then Isaac saw
something flicker under the skin of her scalp, bulging and wriggling
and rippling beneath her hair and flesh like an eel in mud, saw a
movement that was not hers behind her eyes, and he watched mucus and
tears and ichor pour from the orifices of her head as the tongue
wriggled into her mind and just before he fled Isaac saw her eyes dim
and go out and the slake-moth’s stomach distend as it drank her
dry.

Lin was alone.

She sat in the attic,
leaning back against a wall with her feet splayed like a doll’s.
She watched the dust move. It was dark. The air was warm. It was
sometime in the small hours, between two and four.

The night was
interminable and unforgiving. Lin could hear-feel vibrations in the
air, the tremulous cries and howls of disturbed sleep rocking the
city all around her. Her own head felt heavy with portent and menace.

Lin rocked back a
little and rubbed her headscarab wearily. She was afraid. She was not
so stupid as to not know that something was wrong.

She had arrived at
Motley’s some hours before, in the late afternoon of the
previous day. As usual, she had been instructed to make her way to
the attic. But when she had entered the long, desiccated room, she
had been alone.

The sculpture loomed
darkly at the far end of the room. After she had looked around,
idiotically, as if Motley could be hiding unseen in the bare space,
she had walked over to examine the piece. She had supposed, a little
uneasily, that Motley would join her soon.

She had stroked the
khepri-spit figure. It was half finished. Motley’s various legs
had been rendered in curling shapes and hyperreal colours. It
terminated about three feet from the floor in drooping, liquid
undulations. It looked as if a life-size candle in Motley’s
shape had been half burned.

Lin had waited. An hour
had passed. She had tried to lift the trapdoor and open the door to
the passageway, but both were locked. She had stamped on the one and
thumped the other, loudly and repetitively, but there was no
response.

There’s some
mistake,
she had told herself.
Motley’s busy, he’ll
be along shortly, he’s just tied up,
but it was totally
unconvincing. Motley was consummate. As a businessman, a thug, a
philosopher and a performer.

This delay was no
accident. This was deliberate.

Lin did not know why,
but Motley wanted her to sit, and sweat, alone.

She sat for hours until
her nervousness became fear became boredom became patience, and she
drew designs in the dust and opened her case to count her
colourberries, again and again. Night came, and still she was left.

Her patience became
fear again.

Why is he doing
this?
she thought.
What does he want?
This was quite
different from Motley’s usual playing, his teases, his
dangerous loquacity. This was far more ominous.

And finally, at last,
hours after her arrival, she heard a noise.

**

Motley was in the room,
flanked by his cactacae lieutenant and a pair of hulking gladiator
Remade. Lin did not know how they had entered. She had been alone
seconds before.

She stood and waited.
Her hands were clutching.

"Ms. Lin. Thank
you for coming," said Motley from a tumorous cluster of mouths.

She waited.

"Ms. Lin," he
continued. "I had the most
interesting
conversation with
one Lucky Gazid the day before yesterday. I suspect you haven’t
seen Mr. Gazid for a while. He’s been working for me incognito.
Anyway, as you doubtless know, there’s something of a citywide
drought of dreamshit at the moment. Burglary is up. As is mugging.
People are desperate. Prices have gone quite mad. There simply isn’t
any new dreamshit being released into the city. What all this means
is that Mr. Gazid, for whom dreamshit is the current drug of choice,
is in
rather
a state. He can’t afford the merchandise
any more, even with an employee’s discount.