Yes. Of course. On the map it is marked as a second building like this one, with an operations room controlling every aspect of the facility and the super-secure offices of management. The holdfast within the fortress. Pestle’s file says the warehouse part is empty—not enough donors (this is the term he uses for his victims, very sanitary, very voluntary) to fill it right now.
In ten minutes Jim Hepsobah will switch off the generator and pull everyone out. Sally Culpepper will put away her long gun and give up on the Pestlehunt, and we will run and hide and claim to have been drunk in a bar all night, and it was two other fellas and anyway they hit me first. We have exactly that long to get in and out. Vasille and Tommy Lapland grin. It can’t be done. We’ve done it before. Just like old times.
We go do it.
THE BAD ELF of disaster is riding my shoulder as we get to the big doors. It is screaming in my ear as we go through them. Too easy, too fast, too inviting. I think of Professor Derek’s architectural traps at the old Project Albumen, and I wonder if we will just be frozen or melted, rendered down and sluiced away. It is dark inside, and quiet. Not quiet like empty. Not even trying. Quiet like expectant, like waiting for the show.
The lights come on.
And there, in front of me, is exactly what’s wrong.
Ninjas.
In all this time I haven’t seen a single ninja. Now I know why: they were all here. Waiting. Row upon row upon row. It never occurred to me there might be so many of them. In front of them is Humbert Pestle, in a pair of casual slacks and a white shirt looking every inch a gentleman. And yes, of course, beside him is Gonzo, proud, stupid and only now waking up to the possibility that something is seriously messed up. Only now, as two more ninjas bring in Zaher Bey, and behind us the refugees from Templeton are herded through the doors, sad and afraid and totally at a loss, to have salvation stolen away from them at this last instant. Idiot plan. Idiot me. All my fault. All Gonzo’s too, but he’s still catching up, so I can carry the can for us both. He turns to Humbert Pestle, and a brief conversation takes place which I cannot hear but which goes approximately like this:
Gonzo: What are they all doing here?
Humbert: Rescuing you, among other things. Sweet, isn’t it?
Gonzo: (heroic) I do not understand. I am a strong man and a stout warrior, but I am a bear of very little brain and long words confuse me.
Humbert: Idiot.
Gonzo: Release my friends and we’ll say no more about it.
Humbert: No. Look, you’re not getting this, are you? I am . . . evil! Yes! Eeee-vil! Bwah-hahaha!
Gonzo’s face at this moment is a picture. If the situation were not so dire, I would frame it. I want to nod. Yes, Gonzo. He is a monster. Yes, he has betrayed you. Yes, all of this and worse yet—everyone else saw it coming a hundred miles away. Then Humbert Pestle gestures, and they bring in Leah. She looks unharmed and not in mourning but very cross. Thus, a trick. Leah has been decoyed here. Gonzo needs you, come at once! Ma and Old Man Lubitsch left safe at home, saved up in case more leverage is needed.
If I were still inside Gonzo’s head, this tactic would work admirably. I would doubt and dither, and the moment would be lost. But Gonzo Lubitsch, in pure form, does not do stand-off. He moves straight from shock to attack, so quickly that even Pestle is surprised. Gonzo’s fists strike him, hard and fast, and they do not stop. Elbow, knee, knee, knee . . . It is a pounding, a ceaseless assault. Pestle gags. Gonzo strikes again, and again. The ninjas do not move. I don’t understand . . . I do understand. This too is part of the evening’s entertainment. They were expecting it. Leah was not brought to restrain Gonzo. She was brought to provoke him. And because, like the rest of us, she has defied the machine and must die.
Pestle’s head comes up sharply as if he has been woken from a sound sleep and only now realises that he’s being attacked. There’s blood on his face. Gonzo hits him in the nose, and it breaks, in as much as there’s anything left of it to break. Pestle shakes snot and spit, dyed red, from his mouth, and rolls the next punch off like a dog shedding a cobweb. Then he hits back. Gonzo blocks. He puts his whole body into it, hard style, turning as he does so. Wallop. They lock like that for a second, eye to eye, and then Gonzo bounces away as Pestle’s heavy hand reaches for his head. It’s his right hand, of course, so big that Humbert Pestle could actually grab Gonzo and hold him the way I’d hold an orange. Bambambam. More blows, Gonzo like a dervish, striking the upper body. Pestle grins again, smacks Gonzo in turn. Ow. Gonzo staggers back, kicks out, Pestle slips the kick, and around it goes. The ninjas watch without speaking. They’ve seen this dance before, and they’re not interested. Hard form versus hard form. Pestle is bigger and stronger. Sure, he’s old. He’s not that old.
The end comes a moment later. Gonzo and Pestle are bound up together, straining and barging. It looks much less scientific than it is. Then Gonzo breaks a bit too slowly, and Pestle yells with delight and brings his huge, clubbed hand around in a mighty arc for Gonzo’s head. Gonzo throws up his arms to ward it off, and turns into the punch to punish it.
Two sharp snaps, and Gonzo goes white. His arms are broken between the elbow and the wrist. Pestle kicks him and he sprawls away, gasping. Man down.
And then he turns to us. Me, Elisabeth, Tommy Lapland, Baptiste Vasille. A second later Vasille is wearing a row of spikes in his arms and legs. He sinks down, groaning. Tommy Lapland falls to the floor at the same moment. A thrown billy club clatters to the ground beside him. Leaving just us two.
Pestle walks towards us. The ninjas straighten a little, pay attention. We’re the main event. Killing us, in fact, is the main event. Pestle is fifteen feet away and grinning hungrily. He’s looking from me to Elisabeth as if he can’t decide where to start.
I smell something.
I feel better.
It’s ludicrous.
I’m going to die but I don’t mind because I smell something which reminds me of good times. What is that? Then Elisabeth smells it too—and her face goes absolutely still. And suddenly she grins, wide. A tiger’s grin. Humbert Pestle, stalking towards us, stops in his tracks.
Greasepaint.
The refugees behind us look a lot less grey and wan than they used to. They look almost avid. Around their eyes and lips they have traces of white make-up, and they are wearing black, in fact they are wearing black polo necks, with a few overcoats and things thrown in. Not refugees at all. Substitutes. Ringers. The Matahuxee Mime Combine. And then a figure steps from their midst, slender and sprightly.
“Hello,” says Ike Thermite. “My name is Ike Thermite.” He smiles. “And we,” he adds, “are the School of the Voiceless Dragon.”
HUMBERT PESTLE roars something furious which sounds like “No” and charges towards us. His huge, dreadful fist thunders at my head. And Ike Thermite’s narrow fingers brush it to one side and his shoulder hits Humbert Pestle and drives him back, and all around us the Matahuxee Mime Combine are making a fighting wedge, a slender knife where each person supports and protects the next, and the ninjas are having a really bad day. The students of Wu Shenyang have a great deal of pent-up aggression, and while they don’t generally believe in that sort of thing, they are prepared to make an exception today in honour of the Clockwork Hand and most especially those who burned Master Wu alive in his own home. Of course, no one knows exactly who those people were, so they’re content to assume that the person they are presently hitting very hard was solely responsible. Elisabeth Soames dives for the steps leading up to Leah Lubitsch, and a second later it rains unwary members of the Hand. I look for Gonzo. It’s like one of those movies where a hundred bad guys attack the hero one at a time; the only danger is that he may get out of breath hitting them. I am liquid. I am steel. I hit people.
There’s a guy with a pole. He thrusts it at me. I slide past it, and he tries to use the broad side. I roll under it. He twists. I twist too. He flies past me, and now I have the pole. I glower at him. Run away, little man. I am on a job
here, saving a friend. If I weren’t, we’d be pursuing that conversation in terms you would not enjoy.
He decides to fight someone else. I glance around.
Down by the door, four ninjas pursuing Zaher Bey find themselves confronted with a prune-faced bloke aged about a hundred and nine. They laugh at him. Ronnie Cheung turns on his heel and drops his trousers to expose his ugly, wrinkled arse. The ninjas freeze. It isn’t just the sheer gall of this action; Ronnie Cheung’s arse is a startling sight, and where it cleaves there are suggestions of unspeakable mysteries, hirsute awfulnesses best left unexamined. Ronnie smiles over one shoulder at the ninjas, removes his left leg from his trousers, and kicks the nearest one in the throat. Then another. The third and fourth realise their mistake and rush him. Ronnie kicks up with his other leg, wraps his trousers around the head of the smaller one, and drags him down into the path of the other. Then his bare leg scythes onto the fallen guy’s head and it breaks open. The fourth ninja tries to run away, and Ronnie punches him in the back. The ninja lies on the ground, thrashing.
I decide I can safely leave Zaher Bey with Ronnie for the time being and turn back to the fight.
Ike Thermite is going toe to toe with Humbert Pestle. Pestle is impervious; Ike is untouchable. It’s a draw. Master Wu obviously didn’t teach him any Secret Internal Alchemies either. I had this crazy hope, for a moment.
Ike hits Humbert with a combination. It’s a blinder. Pestle takes it in his stride, and Ike has to dodge fast and low. He’s in terrific shape. He can’t do this for ever. Sooner or later, something has to give.
Something does. Humbert Pestle lashes out, and Ike Thermite is slow. He absorbs the blow, flies across the room and lands in a heap. Pestle follows, smashing through the fight around him as if it were a garden hedge. One mime and one ninja are clubbed to the ground. He doesn’t care. He wants Ike. He stands over him and slowly raises his left hand up, his right on Ike’s head. In a moment he will exchange the two, palm for fist, and Ike will break open and die. Pestle’s shoulders ripple as he begins the strike.
Someone hits him with a broom handle.
It’s a very ordinary broom handle. It’s light and strong and not a terribly frightening thing. It breaks on his head like balsa. Pestle drops Ike and turns around, wrath-of-God slow. Scary as hell.
It’s only as I glance down at the fractured broom in my hands that I realise who was dumb enough and brave enough to do the deed.
Oh bugger.
Dodge. Twist. I am air. I step, skip, shuffle. Elvis Walk (defensive, agile) becomes Lorenz Palace Step (random directions making up a usable pattern of attack), and on and on. My hands blur and slap, stroke and twist. Humbert Pestle lunges. I gouge his eye. He roars and strikes down. I savage the muscles in his arm. He kicks, and I punish the joint, lock it, stress it, let it go and whisper away into the space next door as he slams into where I was. I do all these things and it is not enough. Somewhere over there Ike Thermite is broken, out of the fight, and Ike was infinitely better at this than I am. Ike was a senior student. It’s not enough.
He hits me. It’s not a full strike, just a love tap. It picks me up and winds me. No time. I roll. I feel his foot stamp on the ground. Keep moving, don’t tense; breathe, live. I move. Blind Man’s Sword: a sequence to use when you cannot see, a system of deflections and evasions which appear to imply knowledge of the enemy’s movements. Bluff. It works. I move again. He is stalking me, moving smoothly and fast. He is too big to be that fast, or maybe too fast to be that big. I can see. I wish I couldn’t. A thumb fills my vision, and I duck, move away off-axis. It’s a feint. A kick lands in my chest, and I feel my ribs flex. All the air comes out of me. I see colours, black and white and grey and red all at once, then purple and yellow together, laid over each other, then other colours without names. I dodge the follow-up, turn my shoulder and shunt him back, just as Ike did.
I’m going to lose.
I stare up and around in desperation. Where is Sally Culpepper and her gun? Elisabeth is on the gallery. She has Leah behind her, safe for the moment. I meet her eyes.
And I see her.
I see Elisabeth Soames in every moment that I have known her. Every frame of every minute. Elisabeth with cake. Elisabeth stamping her foot. Elisabeth as Andromas. Elisabeth kissing me. Elisabeth, as revealed by a single, white, little-girl sock protruding from the end of a sofa. And I see her, a million years ago, in Master Wu’s house, asking about the Secrets. About the Iron Skin meditation.
There aren’t any of those.
But there are. I am fighting one. Therefore . . .
I will make one up.
And he does. It is a good secret. It is so good, it could almost be real.
I will make one up.
You sneaky, underhanded, cheeky old sod.
Align the chi . . . Feel the ocean . . . You will storm the strongest fortress.
I look at Humbert Pestle. He is unbeatable. He is impregnable.
He is mine.
In that moment I place my absolute trust in the hands of a dead man who wore sandals in winter and asserted a belief that the Chinese space programme was unfairly disadvantaged by the position of the Moon. This is perhaps a slender thread from which to hang the future of the world. Like spider silk, it is strong enough to do the job.
I slow down. It’s not about fast; it’s about where I need to be, and where he needs me not to be. I step lightly. It’s not about power; it’s about timing. Humbert Pestle chops at me, but I am not there. He strikes, but I am outside his centre line and the blow has no strength. Well, it snaps my head back and it hurts, but that’s all it does. I crack his hand as he withdraws it. He tenses. I slide past his guard and slap him. It doesn’t hurt him, but it is extremely embarrassing. I have just girly-slapped him in front of all his ninja kiddies. I have no respect. So nyah.
He slashes at me. He tries to catch me with a fist coming up as I go down, but I am already turning away, and he looks for a moment like some guy posing at the beach, arm bent and tensed, massive bicep straining. Hey, Pluto, where’s my spinach? Nyah nyah nyah. He breathes. I breathe with him. His elbow catches me on the way back and nearly stuns me, but the follow-up is in the wrong place, because I am in the right one. I stamp on his instep. Something snaps. He’s tough enough to ignore it, but it hurts anyway. The rhythm of his breathing is broken as he holds in a grunt of pain.
I touch Humbert Pestle, and I listen to him. I let my hands rest on him as I stroke aside his terrible punches. I taste the air as he exhales. I learn him. I understand the way he moves. I know where he is strong, and where he is not. He is a fortress. But he is not invulnerable. I breathe out. I breathe in. Humbert Pestle works through his pain. It is irrelevant. He breathes out. He breathes in.
Now we move in concert. I mirror him, step with him. I stick to him, slip and slide and duck and dive. His mace-hand goes over my head with a terrific woosh. It frustrates him. He stalks me some more, and finally he is following me. He does not know it. He thinks he is setting the pace, but he has fallen into a rhythm. It is syncopated and abrupt. It varies. But it is a pattern, and I know it intimately, at a level beyond mistake. I can break it. He cannot. He doesn’t realise he has to. I could strike now, hit him endlessly—but there’s no target. He has made himself into a weapon, an armoured monster. There’s no point. I breathe out. So does he. I breathe in. So does he. We are locked together.
We fight some more. We breathe. The thing is, I am a littler guy than Humbert Pestle, and I’m using a lot less energy. I don’t need as much oxygen. His heart rate is going up. He’s starting to feel tired, and he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t understand. I can see it in his face. He’s cross and just a little nervous—he should not be feeling this way. Not so soon. He does this kind of exercise every day. He’s pretty much the hardest bastard in the world. He may not be a young kid any more, but he’s in tip-top shape. He can’t be tired. Push through it. It’s the enemy.
I breathe. He breathes. He throws a c
ombination so fast I can’t imagine being able to block it. I don’t have to. I was never going to be in its path. I was already leaving the target area when he decided to launch it. I slap him again because this man is trying to kill me, so I don’t feel bad about messing with him. His ninja kiddies look shocked and unhappy now. They’re watching him, all of them, even while they fend off the Voiceless Dragon School and keep this area clear. Come on, Humbert! Snap him like a twig! He is weak! What’s the hold-up?
No pressure.
Humbert Pestle is fifty-five. That means his maximum safe heart rate, notionally, is around one hundred and sixty-seven beats per minute. I can see the vein in his neck walloping away. He’s at around one seventy now. I breathe. He is still with me. We’re still in this weird mirror dance. He throws a couple more punches, but they’re weak and slow. There’s not enough oxygen in his blood. He should back off, but he won’t. It’s not who he is. Weakness is an enemy. Fight through it. I look at him. It’s time. I slip a punch and come round in front of him, and I look into his eyes and sigh.
I put everything I have into it. I give him my grief when I heard about Master Wu. I give him poor mad George Copsen’s horror at destroying the world, and every stupid death I saw in the Go Away War. I give him Micah Monroe and the soldiers who didn’t make it. I give him the foal-girl we buried in Addeh Katir. I give him the crazed cannibal dog in Cricklewood Cove and Ma Lubitsch’s endless mourning. I give him my broken heart when Leah shook my hand.
I breathe all the way out, long and slow, and the noise which comes from me is a sadness which could kill you. And Humbert Pestle breathes out with me. He takes my sorrow. He thinks that sigh is me giving up. He draws back his hand for one killer punch.
His heart tops one ninety.
I uncoil and hit him in the chest. I feel the force travel through him from sternum to spine. I know him. I could draw his organs on his skin.
His heart stutters, cramps and stops.