Chapter twenty one
The area lightened as Amanda walked into the bank. A dank marbled hall and a domed ceiling with diffused lighting cast a ghostly pallor about the place. Sepia people mulled throughout the hall, shuffling in queues. Most of the people within the bank had a creature clinging to them, brilliant beacons of colour in the wash of grey.
Movement from the shadows made Amanda glance behind the tellers screen.
Sitting behind the ranks of tellers, high up within a huge alcove where foggy light filtered through a semi circle of windows, was an enormous demon. Razor-thin, spindly, elongated arms draped across the ledges running against the wall, splayed legs hooked up and over the partition between staff and customer, it surveyed the bank with polished gold eyes. It immediately snapped onto Amanda, sounds tumbling from its split mouth like the rustling of paper. Amanda eyed the demon, but ignored its hisses and continued to move through the crowd.
Amanda caught sight of the little girl, standing next to a small desk whilst her mother argued with a bank clerk. The two demons scratched at her scalp and leered about the hall. One of the things caught Amanda staring and, with malice in mind, raked its claw along the shoulders of the girl.
She didn't know where this rush of redemption came from. Perhaps this was a world of her own making, a dreamworld, and she was currently in a hospital bed wired up to a life support machine that drip fed her nutrients as she lay in a vegetative coma. But things were so easy in this world. So easy to see the badness. The evil. The wrongness. And so easy to respond to it - the only way Amanda could respond to the leering, taunting bullies that sat atop people.
Amanda strode over to where the girl slumped, withdrew her baton, flicked, and swung at the sneering bright yellow face of the demon. She caught it squarely on the cheek, shattering bone and cartilage, and the thing dropped from the girl, screaming. The other demon responded, joining its twin in a duet of rage, until Amanda reversed the whip truncheon and swiped the thing from the girl's shoulders.
The twin demons squealed about the floor, yelping, snapping at each other, fighting like a couple of bear cubs, then stilled themselves as a howl echoed through the hall. Within moments, a sleek demon, pouncing along on all fours, leapt through the doorway and towards the imps. The two screamed in unison, clinging to each other as this predatory demon scooped them up in an oversized maw and crunched them to silence.
The hall hushed. Whilst the people continued to slouch through their actions, every brightly-coloured demon in the bank stared toward the commotion. Amanda gripped the truncheon and backed from the creature warily. She recognised its newtish features from the hospital wall, though it had grown fivefold and considerably more dangerous looking.
The enormous demon behind the counters shifted forward. It looked first at Amanda, then the sleek newcomer, then back at Amanda.
'Well,' Amanda said. 'We can do this one of two ways.'
The horde of demons stared at her, enraptured. The enormous fiend leaned over, stretching his drainpipe arms to brace itself on the money counter. People in line shrank back from the tellers, unconsciously reacting to the menace and rage building up within the bank, waves of anger emanating from the thing behind the teller screen.
Amanda gripped the truncheon and swung it about her in large wide arc. The blue glow at the tip of the length of metal trailing like the tail of a comet. She edged toward the door, the sea of sparkling demons crowding toward her, their hosts shuffling together in some other world.
A crystal-green imp riding the jowls of a portly man reached out a claw, catching Amanda on the shoulder, tearing a razor slice in her jacket. A thin line of blood welled from the cut and Amanda felt a burning pain in her arm. Instinctively, she hit out at the bloated thing, smacking it from its perch. The imp screamed, hanging on to the clothes of its host, swinging wildly inches from the floor.
In a blur of black fur and white teeth, the sleek newt-demon tore the swinging imp from its purchase and snapped bones with a crunch of its jaws. The bank full of unholy fiends screamed in rage, clubbing their hosts with taloned fists. The sea of hatred washed over Amanda in palpable waves.
The large spindly demon lurched from its place behind the counter, a glistening crystal streak across the shadows of the bank. Huge talons raked at the crowd in the other world, causing people to flinch, as he jumped in front of Amanda. The fiend spread its arms out wide, almost touching each side of the bank's walls with its talons, and shoved its head close to Amanda's. A fetid stink rolled from its maw.
Amanda whirled to her left, narrowly dodging the enormous claw behind her. She barrelled into the blurred figure of a banker, her skin crawling at the sensation of passing through the disembodied figure. She broke through the queue of people who had hesitated in the doorway, their piggyback demons reacting to the presence of an enraged Duke of Hell.
She stumbled into the street and turned to face the bank entrance, truncheon held high and ready to attack. The enormous demon shoved its head from the archway, alien sounds pouring from its open mouth.
Amanda backed away slowly. The thing remained in the doorway, watching her intently. Once she knew that the demon wasn't going to leave the bank Amanda continued along the street, following the patterns of movement of people in another world.
The creatures were everywhere. They clung to people who themselves were unaware of their presence. Amanda started to recognise different types of the squatter imps, by colour, by features. She was able to inspect them close up, unafraid of their claws. She even struck out at a few of them, sometimes smashing them from their host and kicking them away.
It was some time before she realised she was half a mile from her apartment. She couldn't remember crossing over half of northern London, but the streets and lanes, albeit clogged with dark threads, were unmistakably her neighbourhood.
As she headed down her road, she almost walked into a vibrant red cord that ran from somewhere ahead back past her and into the city centre. It was as thin as a piece of string, shiny wet and pulled taught.
Amanda reached up to the cord, then hesitated. Was it moving? Ebbing slightly, as if something passed within its interior?
Amanda walked along the pavement following the red line. She was surprised to see it curve round a corner and head directly into her front door. The cord passed through the wood and disappeared within.
Steeling herself, Amanda pushed against the door and moved sluggishly through it. The red cord led through her landing and turned into her kitchen. A soft scratching sound emanated from close by.
Amanda held the truncheon behind her arm, hidden from view but ready to strike with a flick of the wrist. She edged carefully into the kitchen.
Sitting on the work surface, legs dangling, was a demon-human hybrid. It was the same double exposure effect as the psychotic nurse in the hospital. A creature housed within person.
The outer features she recognised from the Cambridge laboratory. In the real world his clear blue eyes were startling. In this umbra he was grey faded like everyone else. But beneath his grey fa?ade, a red and bone white creature stretched and distorted his skin. The red cord led straight to his chest.
The creature within saw her first and the parody human-shape it wore swivelled round seconds later. He raised his hand, a sliver of metal appearing in his palm and he lurched forward. The demon screamed, the sinews on its neck expanding and threatening to burst apart, its body flexing and testing the fragile limitations of the human skin it inhabited.
Amanda leant back as a silver streak narrowly missed her throat. She responded by whipping her truncheon up, cracking the jaw of both human and demon. It staggered back, smoke dripping from the wound like blood, then charged at her.
Amanda sidestepped, spinning on her heel like a matador. The demon-hybrid rushed past her and crashed into the kitchen wall. With recent memories of the struggle with the nurse in the hospital, Amanda was acutely aware of how tough the fight might get. From her vantage point, she clubbed the
thing once, twice, three times, catching the back and side of its head.
It swaggered from side to side, punch drunk, and Amanda stepped quickly inside its guard and delivered a coup de gras, swiping the tip of the truncheon against its forehead. Man and demon crunched to the kitchen floor, smoky ichor leaking from the skulls.
Amanda stared at the monstrosity, wondering what could create such a match. The demon clearly nestled within the gel of flesh. She shuddered.
On the kitchen table, close to where the thing had idly waited, was a black and decker nail gun. The packing was ripped open and discarded on the floor, and two packs of nails were lying next to it. Was this the DIY serial killer? Amanda did not want to consider what purpose the thing may have had planned for that.
She crept stealthily through to her bedroom, wondering what the intruder may have kept as a token. The room looked untouched. Amanda peered into her bedside mirror though she couldn't see herself in the greyed out surface.
As she stood to leave she noticed a ragged piece of material hung on the back of the door. Out of place, she moved close to inspect the cloth but froze, realising what the material was.
Her cat, Jasper, white fur scuffed and torn, pinned to the bedroom door with four nails.
Amanda examined the dead cat. She knew that she should be heartbroken, but none of the familiar waves of emotion engulfed her. She was sad for the cat, and annoyed at the intruder who, obvious now he was waiting to kill her, but why kill her cat as well?
But then, the intruder wasn't truly human. He was a human crossed with a demon and some kind of crimson cord stretching out from his body.
Amanda walked back into the kitchen and nudged the intruder with her foot. The red line shifted an inch, stretching out of her flat, down the corridor and away into the distance. Back towards London city centre.
With growing curiosity, Amanda decided to retrace her steps and follow the red cord back into the city. She had found one end of it, the fish tethered to a line. Now to discover who, or what, held the rod at the other end.
She made her way along the familiar streets, winding back in to the busy city.
As the streets became canyons, high cliff buildings, grey and splintered with dark cracks rising either side, Amanda became more adventurous with the spitting imps and demons that rode on the backs of nearby pedestrians. With a casual swipe of her baton, she batted at a glittering yellow thing clinging to a teenage boy. It squealed and limped away, dragging a broken limb along the ground.
If this is my madness, she thought, then at least I'll be the one to be feared.
The red line tracked through the streets of inner London, passing shops and hotels, landmarks and wartime statues, tube lines and bus routes, until it led through a familiar road. A gnawing suspicion and sense of inevitability confirmed itself as Amanda rounded a corner and saw that the red line led to the 'Duvalier & Rose' law firm.
Of course. If this is my descent into madness, then my issues would only be tied to this tomb. She chuckled and followed the cord through the streets, leading down to the familiar block of old buildings, the red line passing through the smoky glass doors of the Lawyers firm and into the dark interior.
A number of other red cords led out from the office doors, splitting away down various roads, umbilical lines attached to 'who knows what' at the end.
The building cast long shadows about it, ink-black blotches obscuring an alleyway and the corners of the firm. The darkness rippled intermittently like the surface of a deep pond.
Amanda paused. The foreboding atmosphere was certainly different to anything seen so far. Was this the root of her problem? Perhaps a sign from her subconscious that would need to be confronted?
She passed through the doorway and into the lobby. Quietly, she walked up the stairs. Each level seemed deserted but the red threads wound up the stairwell heading to the top floor.
At the top of the building a set of doors were propped open to reveal a scene reminiscent of her childhood. A group of people stood in a circle, hoods pulled up from their robes so that they looked like sharp beaked vultures, huddled over a victim. It reminded her of the faceless school gang that surrounded a bullied victim.
She recognised the man at the far end of the room talking in his slow, hypnotic tone. Duvalier. Around him, like a great cloak thrown about his shoulders, were dark forms crushing in and around him. Black shapes with distorted faces pressed into the space in the air surrounding him. Monstrous and menacing and dripping with evil. As Duvalier paced through the room, so did the demonic impressions behind him. Never touching but always reaching out.
Duvalier stopped next to a computer terminal, a soft glow catching his features, talking about his previous life. His words were clear and Amanda listened with a growing fear.
'I have the means to create a soul-bound servant on Earth.' Duvalier said. 'It was my stock in trade when I was in power. Haiti was the perfect place to practice my art. The Tonton Macoute were my army, dedicated to me.
He talked about Tonton Macoute. About an army in the afterlife. About taking possession of a person's soul. About commanding someone like a robot made flesh. It was ridiculous. It was impossible.
And Amanda believed every word.
With a startling moment of clarity, she realised that this was no waking coma. No nightmare state. This wasn't even Hell. The dark creatures hovering over Duvalier, they were the real denizens of Hell and carried with them the promise of eternal torment.
Duvalier strode over to the figure spread-eagled on the floor, the pale grey features were barely recognisable as Professor Anderson. Duvalier took hold of a cockerel and sliced its throat, throwing the dying bird to one side and then plunging his knife into the form on the floor.
Amanda gasped, almost rushing forward to help Professor Anderson. Though she knew she couldn't affect him or even touch him. Instead, she continued to watch the horrific ritual.
Within the circle the shape of the body bulged and splintered. Light burst from the splinters, impossibly white and brilliant in the monotone background. A figure formed within the bulge, wrapping itself around it like a tight fitting shroud. Amanda recognised the figure of Professor Anderson, though it had no defining features or looked like the dead body beneath it.
The surrounding hooded watchers began to jerk and dance, pulling back hoods. They were all demon hybrids. The red and white creatures within each person staring intently on the circle.
The Anderson figure within the circle stood erect, his soul shining out. Duvalier spoke a word and suddenly the light flared, like the brief glare of a dying match, and then was gone. A shadow detached itself from around Duvalier and poured itself into the blank shape left behind and it turned a pitted black.
Duvalier turned to look in her direction.
Amanda was moving before she realised what she was doing. The truncheon in her hand a blue blaze as it struck through the skull of one of the watching demon hybrid's and slapped into the side of another. Amanda had a chance for one more swipe, and she took it, smashing the weighted end firmly down onto the collarbone of a tall hybrid, snapping bone and gristle, before the room erupted in an air raid siren of shrieks and screams.
Amanda turned and ran.
A moment's glance saw Duvalier screaming and pointing at her. Reacting to his bidding, the group tore off their robes and raced after her.
Amanda knew that she was running for her life. She bounded down the stairs of the office building and ran through the lobby doors and out into the quiet street. Behind her the coven of hybrid demons chased after her, the demons within chittering and screaming, their human skins distorted as they raged within.
She ran through narrow streets, navigating the chase through the eerie streets of London. The creatures chased behind her, some splitting off to anticipate a turning left or right, others hounding her footsteps, baying for her blood.
Amanda hurled herself down the middle of a long road, pounding through familiar places
twisted into a nightmare. She recognised a theatre as she ran by and tried not to stare at the creatures clinging to the building.
She veered toward the tourist places she had walked only a day before. Toward Chinatown and the memory that there may be someone there to help. At least, there may be if she believed the prisoner.
She made her way past shops and department stores until she recognised the pedestrian street of Chinatown. The howl of a hybrid demon sounded close. Amanda pumped her arms, running harder than she had ever run before, with the renewed adrenalin of the chased. Muscles in her legs felt like hot twisted cable, beyond pain, just searing heat. And she ran. Not knowing if the next step would be her last if a demon claw would catch her calf and she would fall, to be torn to pieces by a dozen of them.
The amorphous crowd parted and Amanda darted into the clearing, whipping past the occasional back riding glittering demon.
Someone appeared in front of her. A real colour frame in a black and white film. The suspect. The prisoner. Harvey Barker!
He was as real colour as she was, and yelling something, but her ears were beating the percussion of her heart and she couldn't hear through the noise. She reached for her baton, but it wasn't there. It was lying on the floor of the Law firm decorated with the brains of a demon.
And then she was on him, running full pelt into him, and he reached his arms around her and uttered a word.
They both fell to the ground, ripped from the umbra and back into the real world. They were thrown to the hard wet tarmac by the force of Amanda's run.
'Are - are you OK?' Harvey asked, his face inches away from hers. She could feel his hot breath on her cheek and her own body heaving in exhaustion pressed against him.
The cold wind created goose pimples on the back of her legs and she started at the sudden influx of noise of the crowd of shoppers. She was back in the real world. The wet and cold and noisy world, full of colour and no visible demon.
Amanda pushed herself up on her arms. The legs of busy shoppers flicked up spray from the wet road into her face. She felt no greater joy than to feel the freezing spray of rain. She looked at Harvey.
'We have to stop him.'