At first he saw nothing, just Kinderman jogging along. And then the ghost runner appeared once more and he knew what had brought McCloud and Loyer down.
It was no runner, living or dead. It wasn't even human. A smoky body, and yawning darkness for its head, it was Hell itself that was pressing on him.
"Don't look back."
Its mouth, if mouth it was, was open. Breath so cold it made Joel gasp swirled around him. That was why Loyer had muttered prayers as he ran. Much good it had done him; death had come anyway.
Joel looked away, not caring to see Hell so close, trying to ignore the sudden weakness in his knees. Now Voight, too, was glancing behind him. The look on his face was dark and uneasy: and Joel knew somehow that he belonged to Hell, that the shadow behind him was Voight's master.
"Voight. Voight. Voight. Voight-” Joel expelled the word with every stride.
Voight heard his name being spoken.
"Black bastard," he said aloud.
Joel's stride lengthened a little. He was within two metres of Hell's runner.
"Look… Behind… You," said Voight.
"I see it."
"It's… come… for… you."
The words were mere melodrama: two-dimensional. He was master of his body wasn't he? And he was not afraid of darkness, he was painted in it. Wasn't that what made him less than human as far as so many people were concerned? Or more, more than human; bloodier, sweatier, fleshier. More arm, more leg, more head. More strength, more appetite. What could Hell do? Eat him? He'd taste foul on the palate. Freeze him? He was too hot-blooded, too fast, too living.
Nothing would take him, he was a barbarian with the manners of a gentleman.
Neither night nor day entirely.
Voight was suffering: his pain was in his torn breath, in the gangling rags of his stride. They were just fifty metres from the steps and the finishing line, but Voight's lead was being steadily eroded; each step brought the runners closer.
Then the bargains began.
"Listen. – to… me."
"What are you?"
"Power… I'll get you power… just… let… us win."
Joel was almost at his side now.
"Too late."
His legs elated: his mind spun with pleasure. Hell behind him: Hell beside him, what did he care? He could run. He passed Voight, joints fluent: an easy machine.
"Bastard. Bastard. Bastard -” the familiar was saying, his face contorted with the agonies of stress. And didn't that face flicker as Joel passed it by? Didn't its features seem to lose, momentarily, the illusion of being human? Then Voight was falling behind him, and the crowds were cheering, and the colours were flooding back into the world. It was victory ahead. He didn't know for what cause, but victory nevertheless.
There was Cameron, he saw him now, standing on the steps beside a man Joel didn't know, a man in a pinstripe suit. Cameron was smiling and shouting with uncharacteristic enthusiasm, beckoning to Joel from the steps. He ran, if anything, a little faster towards the finishing line, his strength coaxed by Cameron's face. Then the face seemed to change. Was it the heat haze that made his hair shimmer? No, the flesh of his cheeks was bubbling now, and there were dark patches growing darker still on his neck, at his forehead. Now his hair was rising from his head and cremating light was flickering up from his scalp. Cameron was burning. Cameron was burning, and still the smile, and still the beckoning hand.
Joel felt sudden despair.
Hell behind. Hell in front.
This wasn't Cameron. Cameron was nowhere to be seen: so Cameron was gone.
He knew it in his gut. Cameron was gone: and this black parody that smiled at him and welcomed him was his last moments, replayed for the delight of his admirers.
Joel's step faltered, the rhythm of his stride lost. At his back he heard Voight's breath, horridly thick, close, closer. His whole body suddenly revolted. His stomach demanded to throw up its contents, his legs cried out to collapse, his head refused to think, only to fear.
"Run," he said to himself. "Run. Run. Run."
But hell was ahead. How could he run into the arms of such foulness?
Voight had closed the gap between them, and was at his shoulder, jostling him as he passed. The victory was being snatched from Joel easily: sweets from a babe.
The finishing line was a dozen strides away, and Voight had the lead again. Scarcely aware of what he was doing, Joel reached out and snatched at Voight as he ran, grabbing his singlet. It was a cheat, clear to everybody in the crowd. But what the Hell.
He pulled hard at Voight, and both men stumbled. The crowd parted as they veered off the track and fell heavily, Voight on top of Joel.
Joel's arm, flung out to prevent him falling too heavily, was crushed under the weight of both bodies. Caught badly, the bone of his forearm cracked. Joel heard it snap a moment before he felt the spasm; then the pain threw a cry out of his mouth.
On the steps, Burgess was screeching like a wild man. Quite a performance. Cameras were snapping, commentators commenting.
"Get up! Get up!" the man was yelling.
But Joel had snatched Voight with his one good arm, and nothing was going to make him let go. The two rolled around in the gravel, every roll crushing Joel's arm and sending spurts of nausea through his gut. The familiar playing Voight was exhausted. It had never been so tired: unprepared for the stress of the race its master had demanded it run. Its temper was short, its control perilously close to snapping. Joel could smell its breath on his face, and it was the smell of a goat.
"Show yourself," he said.
The thing's eyes had lost their pupils: they were all white now. Joel hawked up a clot of phlegm from the back of his thick-spittled mouth and spat it in the familiar's face.
Its temper broke.
The face dissolved. What had seemed to be flesh sprouted into a new resemblance, a devouring trap without eyes or nose, or ears, or hair.
All around, the crowd shrank back. People shrieked: people fainted. Joel saw none of this: but heard the cries with satisfaction. This transformation was not just for his benefit: it was common knowledge. They were seeing it all, the truth, the filthy, gaping truth.
The mouth was huge, and lined with teeth like the maw of some deep-water fish, ridiculously large. Joel's one good arm was under its lower jaw, just managing to keep it at bay, as he cried for help.
Nobody stepped forward.
The crowd stood at a polite distance, still screaming, still staring, unwilling to interfere. It was purely a spectator sport, wrestling with the Devil. Nothing to do with them.
Joel felt the last of his strength falter: his arm could keep the mouth at bay no longer. Despairing, he felt the teeth at his brow and at his chin, felt them pierce his flesh and his bone, felt, finally, the white night invade him, as the mouth bit off his face.
The familiar rose up from the corpse with strands of Joel's head hanging out from between its teeth. It had taken off the features like a mask, leaving a mess of blood and jerking muscle. In the open hole of Joel's mouth the root of his tongue flapped and spurted, past speaking sorrow.
Burgess didn't care how he appeared to the world. The race was everything: a victory was a victory however it was won. And Jones had cheated after all.
"Here!" he yelled to the familiar. "Heel!"
It turned its blood-strung face to him.
"Come here," Burgess ordered it.
They were only a few yards apart: a few strides to the line and the race was won.
"Run to me!" Burgess screeched. "Run! Run! Run!"
The familiar was weary, but it knew its master's voice. It loped towards the line, blindly following Burgess' calls. Four paces. Three – And Kinderman ran past it to the line. Short-sighted.
Kinderman, a pace ahead of Voight, took the race without knowing the victory he had won, without even seeing the horrors that were sprawled at his feet.
There were no cheers as he passed the line. No congratulations.
> The air around the steps seemed to darken, and an unseasonal frost appeared in the air.
Shaking his head apologetically, Burgess fell to his knees. "Our Father, who wert in Heaven, unhallowed be thy name -”
Such an old trick. Such a naпve response.
The crowd began to back away. Some people were already running. Children, knowing the nature of the dark having been so recently touched by it, were the least troubled. They took their parents' hands and led them away from the spot like lambs, telling them not to look behind them, and their parents half-remembered the womb, the first tunnel, the first aching exit from a hallowed place, the first terrible temptation to look behind and die. Remembering, they went with their children.
Only Kinderman seemed untouched. He sat on the steps and cleaned his glasses, smiling to have won, indifferent to the chill.
Burgess, knowing his prayers were insufficient, turned tail and disappeared into the Palace of Westminster. The familiar, deserted, relinquished all claim to human appearance and became itself. Insolid, insipid, it spat out the foul-tasting flesh of Joel Jones. Half chewed, the runner's face lay on the gravel beside his body. The familiar folded itself into the air and went back to the Circle it called home.
It was stale in the corridors of power: no life, no help.
Burgess was out of condition, and his running soon became a walk. A steady step along the gloom-panelled corridors, his feet almost silent on the well trodden carpet.
He didn't quite know what to do. Clearly he would be blamed for his failure to plan against all eventualities, but he was confident he could argue his way out of that. He would give them whatever they required as recompense for his lack of foresight. An ear, a foot; he had nothing to lose but flesh and blood.
But he had to plan his defence carefully, because they hated bad logic. It was more than his life was worth to come before them with half-formed excuses.
There was a chill behind him; he knew what it was. Hell had followed him along these silent corridors, even into the very womb of democracy. He would survive though, as long as he didn't turn round: as long as he kept his eyes on the floor, or on his thumbless hands, no harm would come to him. That was one of the first lessons one learnt, dealing with the gulfs.
There was a frost in the air. Burgess' breath was visible in front of him, and his head was aching with cold. "I'm sorry," he said sincerely to his pursuer.
The voice that came back to him was milder than he'd expected.
"It wasn't your fault."
"No," said Burgess, taking confidence from its conciliatory tone. "It was an error and I am contrite. I overlooked Kinderman."
"That was a mistake. We all make them," said Hell. "Still, in another hundred years, we'll try again. Democracy is still a new cult: it's not lost its superficial glamour yet. We'll give it another century, and have the best of them then." "Yes."
"But you -”
"I know."
"No power for you, Gregory."
"No."
"It's not the end of the world. Look at me."
"Not at the moment, if you don't mind."
Burgess kept walking, steady step upon steady step. Keep it calm, keep it rational.
"Look at me, please," Hell cooed.
"Later, sir."
"I'm only asking you to look at me. A little respect would be appreciated."
"I will. I will, really. Later."
The corridor divided here. Burgess took the left-hand fork. He thought the symbolism might flatter. It was a cul-de-sac.
Burgess stood still facing the wall. The cold air was in his marrow, and the stumps of his thumbs were really giving him jip. He took off his gloves and sucked, hard.
"Look at me. Turn and look at me," said the courteous voice.
What was he to do now? Back out of the corridor and find another way was best, presumably. He'd just have to walk around and around in circles until he'd argued his point sufficiently well for his pursuer to leave him be. As he stood, juggling the alternatives available to him, he felt a slight ache in his neck.
"Look at me," the voice said again.
And his throat was constricted. There was, strangely, a grinding in his head, the sound of bone rasping bone. It felt like a knife was lodged in the base of his skull.
"Look at me," Hell said one final time, and Burgess' head turned.
Not his body. That stayed standing facing the blank wall of the cul-de-sac.
But his head cranked around on its slender axis, disregarding reason and anatomy. Burgess choked as his gullet twisted on itself like a flesh rope, his vertebrae screwed to powder, his cartilage to fiber mush. His eyes bled, his ears popped, and he died, looking at that sunless, unbegotten face.
"I told you to look at me," said Hell, and went its bitter way, leaving him standing there, a fine paradox for the democrats to find when they came, bustling with words, into the Palace of Westminster.
IX: JACQUELINE ESS: HER WILL AND TESTEMENT
My God, she thought, this can't be living. Day in, day out: the boredom, the drudgery, the frustration. My Christ, she prayed, let me out, set me free, crucify me if you must, but put me out of my misery. In lieu of his euthanasia benediction, she took a blade from Ben's razor, one dull day in late March, locked herself in the bathroom, and slit her wrists. Through the throbbing in her ears, she faintly heard Ben outside the bathroom door.
"Are you in there, darling?"
"Go away," she thought she said.
"I'm back early, sweetheart. The traffic was light."
"Please go away."
The effort of trying to speak slid her off the toilet seat and on to the white-tiled floor, where pools of her blood were already cooling.
"Darling?"
"Go."
"Darling."
"Away."
"Are you all right?"
Now he was rattling at the door, the rat. Didn't he realize she couldn't open it, wouldn't open it? "Answer me, Jackie."
She groaned. She couldn't stop herself. The pain wasn't as terrible as she'd expected, but there was an ugly feeling, as though she'd been kicked in the head. Still, he couldn't catch her in time, not now. Not even if he broke the door down.
He broke the door down.
She looked up at him through an air grown so thick with death you could have sliced it.
"Too late," she thought she said.
But it wasn't.
My God, she thought, this can't be suicide. I haven't died. The doctor Ben had hired for her was too perfectly benign. Only the best, he'd promised, only the very best for my Jackie.
"It's nothing," the doctor reassured her, “that we can't put right with a little tinkering."
Why doesn't he just come out with it? she thought. He doesn't give a damn. He doesn't know what it's like. "I deal with a lot of these women's problems," he confided, fairly oozing a practiced compassion. "It's got to epidemic proportions among a certain age-bracket."
She was barely thirty. What was he telling her? T hat she was prematurely menopausal?
"Depression, partial or total withdrawal, neuroses of every shape and size. You're not alone, believe me." Oh yes I am, she thought. I'm here in my head, on my own, and you can't know what it's like.
"We'll have you right in two shakes of a lamb's tail." I'm a lamb, am I? Does he think I'm a lamb? Musing, he glanced up at his framed qualifications, then at his manicured nails, then at the pens on his desk and notepad. But he didn't look at Jacqueline. Anywhere but at Jacqueline.
"I know," he was saying now, “what you've been through, and it's been traumatic. Women have certain needs. If they go unanswered -”
What would he know about women's needs?
You're not a woman, she thought.
"What?" he said.
Had she spoken? She shook her head: denying speech. He went on; finding his rhythm once more: "I'm not going to put you through interminable therapy-sessions. You don't want that, do you? You want a little reassurance, and you want
something to help you sleep at nights."
He was irritating her badly now. His condescension was so profound it had no bottom. All-knowing, all-seeing Father; that was his performance. As if he were blessed with some miraculous insight into the nature of a woman's soul.
"Of course, I've tried therapy courses with patients in the past. But between you and me -”
He lightly patted her hand. Father's palm on the back of her hand. She was supposed to be flattered, reassured, maybe even seduced.
"- between you and me it's so much talk. Endless talk. Frankly, what good does it do? We've all got problems. You can't talk them away, can you?"
You're not a woman. You don't look like a woman, you don't feel like a woman -”Did you say something?" She shook her head.
"I thought you said something. Please feel free to be honest with me."
She didn't reply, and he seemed to tire of pretending intimacy. He stood up and went to the window. "I think the best thing for you -”
He stood against the light: darkening the room, obscuring the view of the cherry trees on the lawn through the window. She stared at his wide shoulders, at his narrow hips. A fine figure of a man, as Ben would have called him. No child-bearer he. Made to remake the world, a body like that. If not the world, remaking minds would have to do. "I think the best thing for you -”
What did he know, with his hips, with his shoulders? He was too much a man to understand anything of her. "I think the best thing for you would be a course of sedatives -”
Now her eyes were on his waist.
"- and a holiday."
Her mind had focused now on the body beneath the veneer of his clothes. The muscle, bone and blood beneath the elastic skin. She pictured it from all sides, sizing it up, judging its powers of resistance, then closing on it. She thought: Be a woman.
Simply, as she thought that preposterous idea, it began to take shape. Not a fairy-tale transformation, unfortunately, his flesh resisted such magic. She willed his manly chest into making breasts of itself and it began to swell most fetchingly, until the skin burst and his sternum flew apart.
His pelvis, teased to breaking point, fractured at its centre; unbalanced, he toppled over on to his desk and from there stared up at her, his face yellow with shock. He licked his lips, over and over again, to find some wetness to talk with. His mouth was dry: his words were still-born. It was from between his legs that all the noise was coming; the splashing of his blood; the thud of his bowel on the carpet.