London Falling Read online

  She killed all the soldiers, one by one, dispatching as many of them as she could as sacrifices. She became something even greater with every moment. And now she was able to glimpse who she was sacrificing to, and to hear a distant laughter. Mora didn’t care. They deserved it. She raped those who had raped her, and then sentenced them to die forever.

  When they were all dead, she closed the gates of this charnel house behind her, and walked out through the wall, invisible and mighty, into the white sepulchre that was London.

  With the Sight, she could see that the soil she carried would let her go no further than the bounds of the city. But, by carrying it, she could travel anywhere within it. She was like a great predatory fish being let loose into a large lake. She was master of this expanse and no further.

  She turned to look back at the locked gates of the house. ‘She wasn’t a witch,’ she announced for the last time.

  Centuries passed, and Mora experienced too much life. London grew around her too, astonishingly, her small pool becoming full of more and more of ‘the mob’. In a tavern one evening she counted the years of kings and queens, and realized she was seventy. And though she now looked it, and looked back to her youth as a woman of seventy would, she had not a single new ache that had crept up on her, only those that were old friends. The same was true at age one hundred, and then passing through the decades to two hundred, and then she let thoughts of that go too, and forgot she had an age.

  She would take three children, and make a good sacrifice, and feel life flooding back into her, and she wanted to laugh at the mob at the same time, knowing that she again had vengeance on them for what they had done to their Queen, and to Mora herself. They claimed they so loved their children. They loved them enough that they would kill innocents like her mistress to have more. So she loved giving them fewer. She would sacrifice adults too now, in a way she had learned when the city burned . . . and she had stayed among the flames, dancing and learning the skill of giving someone whole to the flame, so that the moment of striking and of sacrifice became one, spending and receiving in the same instant. That was like being in love with the destruction, having congress with it.

  In order that people would know what she was about when they glimpsed her, she learned what the people most feared from such as her, and made herself into that. She therefore fabricated herself a cat out of so many sacrifices that she lost count, all of them boiled together at once in a cauldron that she stole from the back of a cart, and then infused it into a dead mog she’d found lying in the street. She made it as something that would reflect what she herself was back at her, something that would not argue, not offer her any distraction that might lessen her purpose or stay her hand. It was to provide all the good things about having company, and none of the bad. It was nothing like a child, for it was nothing of her, and yet only her.

  In the aftermath of the Great Fire of London, she gradually became aware that, in this small pond, there were starting to be others who did as she did. They came with all the buildings that were now shutting out the sky. Some of them hid in the shadows, as she did, but some walked around in silks and hats. With civilized gestures of the right hand, they described to their servants where they would place such a building, while crafty, secret gestures of the left hand were making sure the angles of that building were right for the unseen tides which only they and Mora knew of. Mora herself did not feel inclined to meet those of either kind, but she feared the latter more, seeing immediately that they worked for kings and had the stuff of kings about them. She hated kings half the week, and the mob for the other half. She recognized the irony that, as people flooded into the small pond she was trapped in, they all seemed to feel the same, thus hating themselves as being part of the thing they hated, or at least all of them did a little. As more of them came, more buildings appeared, and so more of the crafty architects who knew the same secrets as she did arrived, until Mora found herself feeling limited. It was as if they were fencing off more and more of the tiny space she survived in.

  So she was on nobody’s side, remained just the thing that took away children, and she took steps never to be revealed, which meant the parents seldom realized. Hers were the children that got lost in the cracks of the city. She was on no side until, returning one day, as she often did, to her mistress’ house – which had come to be called, to Mora’s great pleasure, Boleyn Castle – to take more soil from its grounds, she saw a group of men outside it, kicking a ball. That also gave Mora great pleasure, because it would have angered the King mightily to see the game he had forbidden being played over one of his properties. They weren’t playing at archery now! She therefore stayed in shadow and let those men live, and made sure always to seek out her sacrifices far away.

  As the years passed, what the men did there grew and grew. One day they stuck in the ground a flag with an image of a castle on it, which was now to be their emblem. The spot where they played became known as ‘the Boleyn Ground’, and when they built a stadium for spectators, it had big towers standing outside it. Mora had long since started to attend these matches, hidden at first, and then later in disguise and having paid money. She was increasingly tempted to support them with her craft, and to ensure they were always victorious, but she managed to resist that urge. In truth, she didn’t want to diminish the joy at genuinely winning and, yes, also the sorrow of losing. They became increasingly bound together, occupants of the same soil, and the team’s victories were also Mora’s. When wireless became commonplace, she saw those around her in the stands listening to it, so she stole a set for herself, and started to listen to the commentaries, and eventually to other things that told her stories about the old world. She switched it off rather than hear of the new. The new was what limited her and bricked her in. The cat even started to talk with the voice of the radio, but still only told her the news she wanted to hear.

  She hated witnessing the team’s defeats, hated the loud celebrations of the filthy scum that scored against them. So every now and then, but taking care not to do it too often, she would send the worst of those shits to Hell early. She became well known to a few of the spectators, and in time had stories told about her.

  It was only a few years ago that Mora started to have a distant feeling that something around her was changing. The secret tides of London were moving almost imperceptibly in some new direction; only one as sensitive as she was might have noticed. One autumn morning she was gathering soil near the stadium when she realized that someone who should not be there was watching her. She turned, ready to send a force slapping against him from her palm, but then realized immediately how little such a tiny reflex would mean to him. He was smartly dressed, having the stuff of kings about him, yes, but he was common too. So he was either both of those things she hated, or neither. But he was smiling all over his face, and that made her choose neither. He was smiling about her, which was something Mora was only used to, sometimes, on her beloved terraces. He told her she had made a contribution to what he called his stocks, and that he applauded her. And he did applaud, and every clap of his hands sent joy flooding through her, and she realized who he was. And finally she knew that here was the creature that, with her visions of Hell, she had long suspected existed. He told her there was a possibility that soon, because of all they were doing to contain and limit London, the descendants of those men in fine gloves, who were always meddling, would stop her from being able to reach her beloved ground.

  Mora was horrified. He asked her whether she would owe him service if he removed, as he was planning to do, those who might block her from the Boleyn Ground. She told him with certainty she would. He told her that a man who’d made him good sacrifice had just, at his suggestion, bought the season-ticket seat next to hers. She was to work for him for ten years, and then stop, and the work would serve a higher purpose than it seemed to. He licked his palm and held it up; Mora saw a streak of blood there. Hesitantly, but aware that she was in the presence of, for the first time in centuries,
a power that could harm her, a power that asked very little and was being civil, Mora kissed the palm offered to her and tasted blood like water and ashes.

  And then he was gone, and Mora found herself weeping, shedding black tears that scorched her face and marked her beloved soil. Because she had now met the power of another king, and, just like that, he had reminded her how she was a victim.

  But she did what she was told, and she met with the man Rob Toshack. She even told her name to him, so that he might know it. She found that, despite her anger and hatred at her own weakness, they had much in common, that this was easy work indeed, and that she could therefore remain herself. And so she let herself forget that she was merely a victim. Except at somewhere close to her heart, where she always remembered. ‘She wasn’t a witch,’ she would still insist. But now she didn’t know whether she referred to her mistress or herself.

  TWENTY-THREE

  As the cat came to the end of its story, Ross felt a terrible fury inside her. ‘That doesn’t excuse her,’ she began. ‘That doesn’t . . .!’

  But looking at the faces of the listening coppers, she realized that none of them thought so either, and she turned away. The ridiculous voice of that cat, talking so nicely about Toshack and the sacrifice of her dad . . . She wanted to hurt it for how it agreed with her.

  While the cat ate a second tin of food, Sefton followed the others to the Ops Board. ‘It’s not just that she’s only got special powers in London ’cos of the soil,’ he said, ‘but she can’t bloody leave!’ He amended the board to reflect that, but felt frustrated rather than triumphant. With her everywhere around, it was more like they were stuck in here along with her.

  ‘And we heard about the old law again. But they were got rid of not long ago,’ observed Quill, making a new addition to the list of concepts.

  ‘And . . .’ said Costain, reaching out with a marker for the photofit of the smiling man, ready to write a new name underneath.

  Sefton grabbed his arm and stopped him. ‘We don’t know if she’s right. Putting the name up there would be suggesting we knew. We don’t do theology.’

  Costain glared at him, but finally put the pen down.

  Ross spoke up then, sounding angry at both of them. ‘Listen, if we can only manage to nick her, and we can convince a judge that it’s against the public interest for her to be kept in the city, and we can then get her sent somewhere else to be detained before trial . . . I’d like to find out what happens to her as that prison van heads up the M1. That’d be one solution to Objective seven on the Ops Board: bring to trial or destroy.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Quill, ‘that would be the point at which to start negotiating about a few things. Like Objective six: us getting rid of the Sight. But we have to nick her first. And that cat isn’t going to help.’

  Sefton watched as the others drifted back to their regular tasks. He’d observed some lessons of his own from the cat’s story, but wasn’t sure they were the kind of things that would mean anything much to the others. He wasn’t even sure about them within himself. But now there was somebody else he could tell.

  The march held that Saturday headed down one side of Hyde Park, a long column with banners and drums and air horns. In the middle of it walked Kev Sefton, feeling deeply awkward, as Joe strode beside him.

  ‘I wanted,’ said Sefton, ‘to talk somewhere private, you know?’

  ‘It’s noisy enough for privacy, and I’d promised them I’d come along.’

  ‘Who are “they”?’

  ‘It’s against the cuts. This is mostly Occupy, but our section is walking under the pink flag.’ Uniforms lined the route. Cars sounded their horns as they passed, either supportively or aggressively, it was impossible to know. Sefton tried to find support around him, wondered if this sort of thing contributed to being remembered. Maybe. But you needed to mean a lot more, individually, to a lot more people, before you could draw on power like that, even if you knew the right gestures and could make your voice sound the right way. It was like a big but weak force, while sacrifice was for smaller things, but stronger ones. He wondered if Losley, now she’d mastered both, had turned into some sort of higher being, and was no longer concerned with killing. But then he noticed that one of the copies of her was stalking along beside the parade, as everyone else talked about the match on Monday, and just a look at that essence of her told him she still was what she was. She couldn’t forget her past, that history of hers they’d heard. She was addicted to that past. It was all he could do to keep himself walking along, as he felt the weight of the crowd around him, the nausea of all these individual desires seething among the single purpose. Thank God he had more control of the Sight now, or he’d have been in real trouble. He’d hoped to be able to talk to Joe about this stuff, but, just looking around now . . .

  ‘I’m already—’ The music around them suddenly got even louder, and Sefton had to shout to be heard above it. ‘I’m already having to try very hard not to see a few things even among this lot.’

  Joe looked around, interested. ‘You mean with the Sight?’

  ‘No, I mean like that bloke in a mask, and the couple of canisters being passed back, and I’m not keen on how sharp some of these sign poles look.’

  ‘Look, we don’t all—’

  ‘You know what I bloody am.’ I’m like her, against one thing and also its opposite, like a lot of people now, maybe like a lot of people always are. And that pink flag above me is sort of my West Ham, but so’s the warrant card in my pocket. And I don’t want either to become my club, like hers is. ‘Listen, I’ve been thinking about what I need to do.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I heard her history, and she went through some extreme shit. She was dedicated. She was passionate. You meet a fighter like that, you’ve got to step up, you’ve got to be on their level, yeah? I’ve just been fumbling around with this shit, I’ve been experimenting, I’ve been making mistakes. I can’t seem to find my right moment, find my voice. She didn’t do any of that: she just dived into something she feared, in order to help someone she loved. At least one of us needs to get as deeply into this stuff as she did. And there’s only me who’s doing it. I’ve got to learn it the hard way, without a teacher, like she did. Maybe get hurt like she did, dig as deeply into myself as she did.’

  ‘If you feel that, then—’ But now there were shouts from ahead of them, and the sound of horses charging, and the crowd burst apart in all directions around them, yelling and screaming.

  There’d been some violence up ahead, and it exploded back down the column of marchers, splitting it as whole groups tried to turn away from the route, either to get out of the way or because they’d arranged it beforehand. Sefton and Joe stumbled and swayed with the crowd surging around them, as shouts grew louder from every direction. Sefton felt the Sight pushing the violence of the situation into his head, making him want to hide. Then the group were shoved aside as another group came barrelling into them, and they found themselves slammed back against the railings. People started climbing up over them, some of them masked, all of them yelling. Some of them tumbled over the railings into the park, and some of them merely fell back.

  ‘Oh fuck,’ said Sefton, ‘we’ve been kettled.’ And, just as he said it, in came the smoke, a wave of it directed elsewhere but blown back against them. People nearby started throwing things back in the direction of the attack, their muscles and shouting and sweat all getting into his head now. He looked deep into the swirl of the smoke and saw tantalizing images of proud protest, of ragged peasants and charging soldiers and gunfire and a map unfolding of how that eruption had poured a more lovely and awful England into the world. He felt it like another awful nostalgia, a road he couldn’t take, an illusion and a truth both at once. He knew that if he stayed here long enough for the smoke to get into his lungs, he’d be taken by one side and thus lose his place in the other, and end up off his feet, and unable to stand as he needed to now.

  He grabbed Joe and kissed h
im. ‘We’re going now,’ he said. And then he pulled out his warrant card.

  ‘What do you mean, “we’re going”?’ But Joe let himself be dragged forward as the crowd went bulging that way, towards a perimeter on the pavement where people were shouting at and arguing with and attempting to negotiate with a row of uniforms with helmets and riot shields. There was a sudden surge behind them, and Sefton found himself thrown up against one of those shields. His warrant card flew out of his hand. He bent to pick it up—

  He was knocked flying, a knee in his head. His hand closed over the card. Beside him, Joe fell, along with a row of others, a baton bouncing back off his head. ‘Hoi!’ shouted Sefton. ‘Hoi!’ He leaped to his feet, hauled Joe up beside him, and saw the waves back away from him, gathering strength: the two sides about to slam down and force him into some screwed-up space he couldn’t live in. He held up his warrant card in front of him like a talisman.

  ‘Right you!’ bellowed the copper directly in front of him, his shoulder number hidden. Sefton and Joe were grabbed and hauled through the shield line. Sefton was shoved down again and heaved himself up, ready to thump the next uniform that waved a baton at him—

  But they were out of it now. The wave of uniforms had moved past them, leaving them both sitting there in the road. More uniforms rushed past, and from this angle Sefton could see a running battle taking place, the uniforms being pelted alongside those railings, and he felt an immediate stupid anger back in the other direction, and the waves inside him and surging across the protest rolled round London again and never broke. Sefton went over to Joe and helped him stand, put his hand to the man’s wounded head.

  ‘Thanks for getting me out,’ Joe said.