Spectred Isle (Green Men #1)(72)
Isaacs swung his arm out with a slicing gesture. A draggled, sharp-toothed head flew like a football, hit the ground under the tree, and bounced. Randolph grabbed Saul’s arm as he recoiled, so he didn’t fall out of the tree.
He could have sworn they hadn’t carried weapons, but Isaacs now seemed to be wielding two whips, each apparently studded with razors, because as he swung, they severed anything they touched. Barney held some sort of—Saul couldn’t make it out, some dark angled thing that jack-knifed out and cut—
Isaacs’ whip snaked around a fen-grendel’s neck, lifted the creature above the pack, swung it around like the arm of a crane, and dropped it in the water. It screamed as the green algae rose to meet it, but only briefly. The whip curled back on itself, hovered over the melee for a second, then stiffened to a rigid spear and stabbed savagely down, at which point Saul’s eyes gave up their effort to tell him a plausible lie.
“He’s got fucking tentacles!” he shouted at Randolph. “Look at them! Who the hell are they? What are they?”
“Military-occult experiment.” Randolph spoke loudly over the screams. “The Government wanted a battalion of abominations, and you can see why. Perhaps fifty men were put through hell in the process, by arcanists including, I’m ashamed to say, my cousin Vernon. Only that pair survived what was done to them. Those responsible should have swung.”
“They’d all died,” Sam pointed out.
“Typical Vernon. Suppose we tackle the rest of the problem while our abominations hold the bridge?”
“Just a moment. Wait.” Saul gripped the branch, struggling to breathe. He’d been prepared to trap himself on an island with monsters and end it there, settling his debt to society in a single act. He hadn’t wanted to die, least of all now life had started to take on meaning once more, but there had seemed an inevitability to it, and he’d felt entirely serene in that flawless moment when Randolph had stood with him to make their atonement together. Finding himself up a tree instead, watching two not-quite-men go through monsters like a threshing machine, was confusing.
“All right?” Randolph enquired, leaning close to speak at a reasonable volume.
“You were going to stay.” The light faded out like a sigh. Saul was glad; he didn’t want to see Randolph’s face, or to have his seen. “I was going to— And you stayed.”
“Did you think I’d leave?”
Saul couldn’t find an answer. Randolph exhaled, a warm breath on his ear. “Ah, Saul. I will object to any further heroism on your part; it’s a terribly bad habit to get into. Suppose we nail dear old Manders back into the coffin where he belongs, and continue this conversation at a more convenient time?”
Saul choked. “We were about to die. How can you be so—so—”
“Facetious? Years of practice.” Randolph’s fingers met Saul’s against the tree bark. “I’d far rather be itemising the ways in which I adore you, but I’ve Sam squashed up against me which is really not a sensual experience I’ve ever aspired to, not to mention the dead prick in the well. Duty calls, Walker. Sam, old chap?”
“Here,” Sam said. “Not deaf, either, and may I say you’re no prize. Are those blasted things still climbing out of that hole?”
Randolph twisted to look. “They are, which suggests our friend is still in it for now. But clearly something that held him down has been removed. We need to lock him back in.”
“Good-oh. How?”
“Asking you again, Saul,” Randolph said. “You were ready to die for the Moat; now live for it. It’s still holding our friend back, poisoning the waters against him. How may we help? What was stolen? What must we return, or replace, to keep him in? Think. You needn’t tell us if it’s a deep secret, but we need to know what to do, and I don’t have a clue.”
Saul looked around. His eyes were adjusting to the night—there was some moon, behind scudding clouds, the dull glow of London in the air. Enough to see the rise of trees around him, the heaving murderous chaos beneath. Barney and Isaacs were foursquare on the bridge, planted side by side, a distinct gap between their strangely shaped silhouettes and the ragweed things that gibbered and darted. The fen-grendels didn’t want to die either, it seemed.
“I’ll try,” he said. “Make sure I don’t fall?”
“Always.” Randolph’s arm came around his waist, fingers splaying. It was a firm hold and didn’t feel at all like a grip for security.
Saul shut his eyes. He didn’t want to think about the mechanical digger’s blade biting into the well—he thought he might vomit again if he did—so instead he tried to imagine the well as it should have been, a stone-lined shaft, cool and deep and mysterious. It had held treasure, according to Major Peabody, the poor, stupid Major, whose body must lie trampled and disregarded, and he’d been wrong anyway. The well had held...
He could taste metal on his tongue again, dull and sweet and somehow soft. He could feel the weight, too, not crushing but confining. Lead, Saturn’s metal, the stuff of transfiguration and doorways, death and rebirth and something in between.
De Mandeville was neither buried nor unburied; shot and hanged and drowned but not dead. Held in between life and death, his rotten heart seething with hate, but still fulfilling his vow as Master of London. Turncoat murderer, eternal protector.