Chapter Nine

The huge room beyond the corridor couldn’t exist in human space and time; there simply wasn’t enough vocabulary in our world to do justice to it. The nearest I could come was ‘the space inside a skull when the brain’s gone’. Chambers off to either side ranked back in the gloom in infinite number and a central passage divided the room; I couldn’t make out any more detail than that. I was going to be running through something that looked like the Library of Hell.

‘Is this it?’ I whispered. Everyone was whispering, the whole crowd. ‘Is this where we’re racing?’

‘No.’ Malfaire looked around. ‘This is the reception area.’

‘Oh,’ I gave a little, half-hysterical giggle.

‘We’re waiting for the gates to open so that the race may begin. Do you have a plan?’

‘Plan? I didn’t even get pudding. I only came to give Rach a good night out and suddenly I’m …’ Hysteria. Not a good look. But the part of me which contained my pride didn’t want to reveal how scared I was. ‘This place is really intimidating, I wonder if they know that.’

‘Of course.’ Malfaire was gazing up into where the ceiling would have been if there’d been one. ‘It’s rather the point.’

Suddenly there was a communal gasp from the crowd. The floor rippled as reality shifted once more, to reveal a huge pair of bone gates. There was a noise like a pain in the soul, a deep sonic groan which came in through my feet and my ears simultaneously, and the crowd began to fall back. If I’d been less panicked, I might have admired the artistry that had created those gates – the designs picked out in fine detail, the intricate way in which the bone had been carved to allow the arch to follow the vaulting of the room, so that the gates formed a kind of cartilaginous echo of the vastness.

‘Right. The rules.’ I found myself pushed right to the margin of the group of runners, who were assembled in front of a vampire I didn’t recognise, while the rest of the crowd moved back, clustering around a device I couldn’t see. ‘You pass through the gates, and from then on you are in strict competition, understand? No holds barred. The first runner to reach the matching gates at the end of the course will be the winner. Remember, the honour of your people is in your hands.’

I think I’d already given up my human honour, together with hope. And faith in my deodorant.

The officious vampire giving us the pep talk glanced over his clipboard. ‘And any death, or fatal injury, is the responsibility of the runner themselves. There is a disclaimer on the paperwork, if you wish to examine it and this will be made available on the noticeboard at the end of the race.’

Death? Fatal injury? I don’t remember the London Marathon having that kind of disclaimer … The zombie and I made eye contact and gave one another an apologetic grin. I knew him vaguely; he ran a greengrocer’s shop in Acomb and had, if I recalled correctly, once had a run-in with a bunch of bully-boys trying to burn him out. I couldn’t see the ghoul runner, but The Hog, whatever it was, was snuffling around the legs of the female vampire, who looked slightly disgusted at the liberty. The sight of them gave me confidence; neither one looked as though they intended anything more dangerous than a slightly scraped knuckle. One at a time, each of them stepped forwards and vanished from sight, until only I was left, with rapidly moistening palms and an increasing awareness that I really wasn’t dressed for this.

And then Malfaire was back. His suit was soft against my skin, raising the hairs along my arms. ‘It’s your turn.’ He gave me a little push forward. The vampire with the clipboard was standing in an alcove with an expectant look on his face.

‘Miss Grant? Step over here, would you?’

I moved towards him hesitantly. As I stepped into the alcove the surroundings melted away like a bad dream. Not-quite instantly the vampire, the alcove and the crowd were gone, replaced instead by a familiar scene. The change was so total that it made me giddy for a second.

I was standing in the middle of York, outside the Minster, facing Stonegate. Everywhere was quiet and there was nobody on the streets. I staggered, unbalanced by the speed of the transition and the odd familiarity of the location – like the city, and yet not, more like a film set built by someone who had seen photographs but never the real place. No birds sang, no pigeons stalked the pavements, the medieval buildings stood like watchers. It was three-dimensional yet nothing cast any shadows. There was no trace of the room I had left, nor of Sil or Malfaire.

I felt sick, needed to sit down, and I groped my way through the oddly painted-on sunlight to the bottom of the Minster steps. Sod the bloody race, I didn’t care if I won, lost or got carried home in disgrace, there was no way I could run when I felt like heaving my dinner up on to the road.

As I sat I felt the skirt of my dress pull across my thighs. I put my hand into the small, satin-lined pocket for the reassuring touch of the metal syringes – a contact with the world that contained Jeremy Kyle and Shameless, my world. The body-warmed smoothness of the containers stood as a little link with reality.

Which was how I came to be holding a tranq tube when the creature struck.

It came at me out of nowhere, silent and rank, and the first I knew of its arrival was the blow to the back of my head which sent me toppling forward off the step to lie sprawled on the pavement. Whether or not the flagstones were real, landing still hurt and pain always makes me angry. It also makes me act instinctively and my instinct was to tranq the bastard.

I brought my hand up and round behind me and dug the needle-end of the tube into the flank of the creature just as it flung its weight on top of me. The head of the beast crashed down on to my skull, enormous paws slid to either side and stinking fur carpeted my entire back. It was like being pinned under the world’s largest bearskin rug. I wriggled my way free, coughing at the smell, and tried to identify my attacker. Superficially it looked like a huge dog, but the wide shoulders looked wrong and the feet were much too big. Some kind of demon, then.

I shook my head, backing away, and looked up at the south face of the Minster. Funny, I’d never noticed the statues before. Set between arched rebuttments in the stone, their features largely rotted away and their garments now rendered indistinguishable drapes and mouldings. It seemed an odd place to have statues, surely their accessibility would mean that they got climbed on or graffiti’d or bits were broken off by souvenir-seeking tourists. And as soon as I realised this, the statues’ eyes opened –pop, pop, pop – with a noise like a stammering grindstone.

‘Run,’ said the nearest, a nose-less crowned figure, in a voice which made me think of heavy smokers, ‘run, now. We like to chase,’ and they began levering themselves down from their podia, scraping and grunting as their legless forms met the pavement, eyeless and browless, in some cases even headless, with truncated, acid-eaten limbs held out towards me.

I’m never one to pass up a suggestion, so I ran. Along Stonegate, head down, powering through the narrow street, until I stuttered to a halt on the corner, where it widened out into a square. The noise of my stone pursuers had faded, but I could still hear, above the thumping of my heart, the sound of pavements being macerated; they were coming and they were coming fast.

Well, this was fun, wasn’t it?

I leaned forward and panted for a moment until I managed to catch my breath, then off I went again heading towards the bridge, where I had to stop because it curved into nothingness. I peered between the railings, down towards the water, but the river wasn’t there either, and here they came again, the stone figures. I wheeled away. Tranqs wouldn’t work, not on rock, and I had no other weapon apart from my desire not to be caught. Turned back to run down a parallel street, and nearly tripped over the body in the road.

‘Hog?’ It was the black beast, the one running for the Wild Folk. He was dead, or at least he was flatter and more spread out than live creatures usually are. I bent down and touched his head with the tip of a finger. He was still warm. But dead. Still warm. But dead.

I looked around for someone official, and had to remind myself that this wasn’t the Marathon. This wasn’t even human territory. My shoulders went cold as the shock blanketed me: people were dying. Was it always like this? Why didn’t we know? And then, from what sounded like every direction at once came the sound of inexorable grating and a kind of mechanical chanting. The bloody statues. Still coming. And I could die …

Shock cut rational thought out and let my hindbrain do the thinking. As usual, my subconscious was a lot more intelligent than my conscious and also a hell of a lot better at self-preservation, and I had a momentary flashback to an evening on watch out here not so long ago, waiting for a vampire that had broken its territorial bounds in Leeds.

A mental map of the city pulsed behind my eyes like an expensive effect in CSI and I turned. There, in the gap where two shops didn’t quite touch, was my advantage: a metal fire-escape, rising from ground level up to a platform close to the roofline. It looked rusty and frail, but I’d climbed it that evening to watch for the vamp in the crowded streets, so I knew it could take my weight. I grabbed the handrail, swinging myself up half-a-dozen steps, then sprinted towards the top.

Don’t think, run. Four flights of rattling fatigued metal, each step clanking as though the whole thing would topple, but it held. By the third flight I was gasping, my thighs were complaining and my lungs were groaning as I swung around the last handrail and grabbed the safety-bar at the top. Bent double and wheezing, I appreciated the view, which was chiefly the statues gathering at the base of the staircase and rolling their heads back to try to look up at me.

As I looked down I was filled with a sudden anger. Bloody Otherworlders! I was a sodding council employee, for God’s sake. I did paperwork and made tea and didn’t understand the computers, like any normal person, so how had I ended up on a rooftop being held at bay by a bunch of jumped-up statuary?

There was a brief moment of huddled quiet down below before the first of them started on up the fire escape. One, then two, and when I looked down I found each of the lower steps occupied by a sculpture. Shit. Metal graunched and screamed at the weight, vibrations ran the full length of the flight and the lower part of the handrail fell away in a rain of rust, but still they climbed.

Mouth dry, I scrambled on to the upper rail surrounding the balcony, gripping the protruding guttering with both hands to keep my balance as I kicked at the few supporting struts which attached the structure to the building. With the weight down below already pulling the metal pins almost beyond their endurance it only took a few moments of fevered wrenching before the entire fire escape peeled from beneath me. As I looked down between my wildly waving legs I could see the entire rank of stone people hitting the pavement, detonating on impact into a suitcase-load of body parts and random carvings.

This would all have been far better news if I hadn’t now been dangling from an only partly supported plastic gutter high above the street. For one moment of desperate weakness I considered bursting into tears. My lungs were howling at me and my arm muscles were lines of fire ending in rapidly numbing fingers. I could let go. I could just drop and have this over. But then reality cut in. I had to get out of here, if only so that I could make good on my promise to punch Sil really hard, and I gritted my teeth, ignored the shriek of pain from my shoulders and swung my legs. My knees caught on the edge of the building and I managed to pull myself up on to the flat roof. Noisy panting ensued. My tights were laddered and my dress was rucked to above my waist but right now I didn’t care. I was alive. Gradually my breathing slowed and I sat down on the pitted surface to get my bearings.

I knew this street. Knew each and every shop, every crack in the pavement, every gobbet of spat-out chewing gum – this was my city. Make that knowledge work, Jess. I wiped my sour-tasting mouth on my bare wrist and thought. Safer up here. Travel at roof level. I stood up carefully and made my way to the edge of the roof, where it joined the next building. I was about to step up when in front of me a shape formed, grew and flowed across the grey rooftop, sinuous and fluid. A Shadow. I barely had time to register it before it was on me.

I fell, slumping down on to my knees. Every single thing in my world was revealed in all its tawdry, pathetic hopelessness. I was nothing. I had no-one. The one I wanted was the one I couldn’t have; I’d die painfully and alone –

Wait a minute. Shadow, think, Jessie, what do you know about Shadows? That they’re nasty, and can kill and they feed off desperation. Almost against my will my muscles contracted and pushed me a step closer to the edge of the roof, shuffling along on my knees. Thirty feet or so of air was all that lay between me and the impact that would stop this horror. The Shadow pushed at my mind, felt almost excited – deriving nourishment from the depression that causes the ending of a life – I just wanted it to stop, now.

Only one thing to do, and I welcomed the blackness and oblivion.

When I woke up, the rooftop was deserted. My thigh ached from the tranq shot and my head was thumping – that stuff was disgusting. But the Shadow had left me; lost interest when my mind was no longer able to feed its habit. Life, once again, didn’t seem quite so bad.

Until I heard the scream.

Ignoring the bad-hangover sensation and the dry lips, I ran. Belted all the way down the line of roofs, occasionally leaping gaps like a cheap cop-show detective, until I reached the end of the row and clambered down the fancy brickwork of Barclays Bank. The female vampire had made it all the way to Coppergate and I headed to where I could see her, a huddled bundle that I hoped was still alive.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Help me.’ The vampire seemed to be in shock, eyes frozen wide and, despite the fact that vampires don’t have much of a circulatory system, she was shivering and pumping blood on to the fancy paved walkway. ‘My leg – ’

‘I can see.’ I pulled off my shoes and tights and wadded the black mesh into a ball. ‘Press this up against it.’ She did as I said, which shows how far gone she was; normally a vampire will chew off their own arm rather than obey a human command. But I didn’t have time to be diplomatic. ‘You’re Caro?’ I had to get her talking, keep her mind off her injury. ‘Keep pressing, it’ll stop the bleeding. What happened?’

‘There was this thing, came at me out of nowhere. It slashed my leg and I think it would have eaten me, except – ’ she winced. ‘The zombie, he came along that road there.’

‘I didn’t see him.’

‘No,’ she said, rather pointedly.

‘Oh.’ This wasn’t a race, it was a bloodbath. ‘I think we ought to keep moving. Whatever took him might still be hungry.’ I tied the remnants of my tights around Caro’s leg, tightly enough to stop the bleeding and, with her leaning on me and hopping, we managed to make some progress through the eerily deserted centre. ‘There’s something not right about this race.’

‘I think, maybe. Yes.’ Caro hopped carefully beside me.

‘I thought it was a bit of fun!’ I wailed. ‘I mean, come on! Against a Shadow? What chance did I have?’

‘You think that the race was purposely made to be dangerous?’

‘Someone entered me in that draw,’ I said, thinking aloud. ‘I think something was supposed to happen to me in the Run.’

Caro was shaking her head. ‘You must be very important then, for someone to rig the race.’

‘But I’m not! I’m not even on the sodding council. I don’t do deals, I don’t have any power over anybody, unless you count Liam, and getting me killed would be a bit extreme; he could just not send me a Christmas card.’ I shook my head. ‘I’m a filing clerk.’ It came out as a wail. ‘Who’d want to kill a filing clerk?’

Caro shrugged, exotically. Clinging together, we hauled ourselves through the narrow exit and out into the open space behind the shopping mall. There, where Clifford’s Tower should have stood, was a pair of bone gates, the matching pair of those in the Hagg Baba.

‘So what will you do?’

‘I don’t know. Try not to get killed.’

Caro gave me a peculiar look out of her green eyes. ‘Welcome to our world. Do you know how many humans want vampires killed? At the last count? The Britain for Humans party comprises fifty thousand people. Fifty thousand, Jessica, would happily see me dead tomorrow. Today. Five minutes ago. Trying not to get killed is a way of life for us.’

‘I thought things had settled down after the Troubles.’

‘For some people things will never “settle down”. Those were bad times, a lot of people on both sides got hurt.’ The vampire sighed. ‘And a long life isn’t necessarily a good thing, when it comes with memories like those.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, and meant it.

Caro gave a brief smile. Her fangs weren’t visible and the smile made her look almost human. ‘You do the best you can, and your liaison work makes people more tolerant, so, it’s not your fault.’

‘Well, thanks for that.’

The bone gates arched above us. ‘All this place needs –

– ‘is a Foo Fighters track playing in the background. Whoa!’ And we were, as they say, back in the room.

The crowd were gathered around a huge glass sphere, which must be the watching device, but they stepped back as we reappeared and there was a very respectable round of applause. I let go of Caro and headed off to the toilets, spent a couple of minutes in there fiddling with my remaining tranq tube, and by the time I came out, she’d been declared the Dead Run winner (there was still no sign of the ghoul). She threw me an apologetic look over the heads of her congratulators, but I just shrugged and went off looking for Malfaire.