A moment to consider the fate of Constable Hurst.
A fairly affable policeman by the standards of the area, he was one of the few local bobbies who believed, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that good policing really did begin with the community. He gave directions to lost visitors, helped old ladies struggling with their shopping, was always firm but polite to the young vandals loitering outside Burger King and, whenever pursing a criminal in the execution of nefarious deeds, always attempted to maintain a calm composure and polite language when nicking the arsehole.
It was therefore unfortunate that he, that day, happened to be the first policeman to arrive at the scene of what had been Edna’s Tanning and Beauty Salon in Tooting, in time to find the pavements thronging with a mixture of horrified and gleefully fascinated onlookers, traffic piled up, cars swerved and, to cap it all off, a bus rammed through the front windows of the now shattered temple. Quite how the bus had achieved this was a mystery, since no one remembered seeing a driver either behind the wheel or leaving the vehicle after the event. But this was surely a question that CID would answer, whereas a junior officer like himself was merely there to keep things under control.
“Is anyone in there?” he demanded of the assembled crowd. “Is anyone left inside the building?”
The crowd responded with shrugs and grunts. Then the owner of the jewellery shop across the street stepped forward with a cry of, “I think I saw a man go inside and…” But he hesitated. His mouth had wanted to say, “and some builders.” However, as he thought it over and tried to pin down the memory of four figures clad in fluorescent jackets, he drew a blank. It wasn’t that he lacked some kind of recollection, but rather as if his thoughts slid over the memory like spilt liquid over marble. His eyes had seen, but his brain had failed to perceive.
“… I think I saw some people come out,” he concluded.
“All of them?”
“I don’t know.”
Constable Hurst puffed in frustration, gestured at the crowd to stay back and, with a cry of “I’m going in!”, plunged through the torn-up window. He hopped over twisted metal and a shattered sink, and edged along the side of the bus, rapping against the still-hot metal and calling out, “Anyone here? Anyone alive?” He felt a mixture of foolishness and immense professional pride as he went, before the sheered edge of a wheel of the bus caught his trouser leg and tore a great ragged slice out of his best uniform from the ankle to the knee. He swore, reaching down to inspect the damage, and as he did felt something move by his ear. His head snapped up, breath drawn in sharply, torn trousers forgotten and for a moment thought he’d seen…
… but no.
The idea was absurd.
What would a builder, bum hanging out of his trousers, fluorescent jacket torn and grubby, face like a flattened breeze block, be doing here? Why had the idea even occurred to him?
“Arses,” whispered a voice, and he jumped, and felt a fool for jumping at nothing.
“Tits,” concurred another, and Constable Hurst half-closed his eyes and reflected that this was not how he had imagined he’d behave when tested, not at all, not by imagining things or by seeing…
“Is this rage?”
His eyes flew open. The voice was real, it had to be real, and there was the speaker: a man, thin hair, pale skin, unnaturally pale, a clean suit–how could clothes be so clean in this place of shattered concrete and dust? Constable Hurst opened his dry mouth to stammer, “Are you okay, sir?” but the words didn’t come; a mumble of not-noises passed his lips and he realised he was afraid, and didn’t know why.
“I am experiencing,” explained the man in the perfect suit, brushing the thinnest veil of powder from his sleeve, and there was something wrong with his hands, Constable Hurst noticed, something wrong with the man’s hands–fingers too long, too bent, too…
… clawed?
“I am experiencing,” repeated the man, as one examining his own feelings with extreme caution, “a peculiar physiological heat which I must assume to be a reaction to some external trigger. How novel. Is it correct to say that one emotion may lead to another? May frustration, for example, be a trigger for anger, and anger of itself then escalate, as though feeding on its own situation, to fury? What an evo-lutionarily unsound feedback system, and yet I,” he smiled and his teeth were too small, shark points in his thin mouth, “appear to have–why yes, I would say it is so!–appear to have all the features that one might classify as rage. To whit, the urge to tear. The urge to fight. The urge to drink blood and gouge the bodies of my enemies in two–or shall I say twain? Twain has an old-fashioned ring about it, though whether that implies a linguistic superiority I cannot say.”
His eyes drifted up from his sleeve and met those of Constable Hurst, and for a moment the unfortunate policeman saw not merely what was there to be seen, but also what was beneath, and his mouth opened to shout a warning, and his fingers fumbled at the pouches on his belt for a weapon, his baton, his radio, anything, anything at all to stop the gaze of this man in a suit, the not-man in his disguise of a suit.
Too late.
Teeth parted.
Fingers stretched.
There was a moment of uncertainty as what was seen to be and what was actually the case met and clashed. For just a moment fingers were claws, and teeth were fangs, and Mr Ruislip’s suit was no more and no less than the thin illusionary disguise that covered his flayed form as he leapt, tongue flicking at the air, straight for the hot pulsing veins of Constable Hurst’s throat.
Some few minutes later someone said:
“Nasty cut, that.”
“Pigs!”
“Cozzer.”
A hand wipes away blood.
A tie is straightened.
A handkerchief mops away the remnant of flesh clinging to a pair of thin grey lips.
“Gentlemen,” murmurs Mr Ruislip, “I do apologise for my deviation into emotionally-led behaviour. It will not happen again. In the meantime…” the handkerchief, stained scarlet, is folded away “… find the shaman and her friends, and kill them for me, if you would be so kind? If you would also dispatch the Midnight Mayor, preferably tearing him limb from limb, and possibly torching any remaining temples of the Friendlies, ideally with their members inside, it would be of great benefit to my composure.”