The Lighthouse at the End of the World, page 23
“Focus on the result. Do not think about how it is achieved,” she said.
Oyster drew in a breath and fought through the fog in his head. He tried to imagine himself stepping into Lazenby’s. His tattoo responded with a lick of agony that threaded around his torso. He cried out and the pain vanished. Okay, he thought, maybe this was something. He tried once more. This time the pain enveloped him for as long as he was able to keep the picture in his head.
“Do not flee the pain,” said the presence. “For a woman, life is pain.”
“Now you really do sound like the old lady,” said Oyster.
“Hold onto that pain. Breathe your soul into it. Interrogate it. Be with it. Inhabit it.”
Oyster took a breath and let the agony slip into him through the ink in his skin. His midriff was threaded with lightning.
“Are you sure that she did not tell you about me?” said the presence with a wistful air.
Oyster couldn’t reply. He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, grimacing as he surfed the spasms of agony rippling through him. A door drifted out of the black. It was wooden-framed, brass-handled and coated in heavy varnish. Other than the fact that it was hanging in the void, it was unremarkable.
“Yes, it is working! More! More!” cried the presence, unfazed by Oyster’s suffering.
He careered towards the closed door. The pain and the emptiness around him made it hard to judge just how fast he was travelling. At the last moment, the door opened. There were shapes beyond it, but it was all too much of a blur for him to make anything out.
“Tell her about me, will you? When she asks you. Tell her not to worry, but that I am fine now. That I still love her. And that I will always love her. I know why she did what she did, and I forgive her. She must forgive herself. I have missed her so very much. Sie war meine liebste. I will always be hers. This is your stop, I believe.”
And then he was flying across Lazenby’s office.
A VALUABLE ASSET
Oyster was a few feet above the ground. He had just enough time to register that it was nighttime before his shins connected with Lazenby’s desk, flicking him headlong into the wall behind it. He threw up his arms in time to cushion himself a little from the impact and he collapsed into a pile, upside down in a groaning heap. I really need to work on my landings, he thought.
He lay there for a few seconds, drinking in Greater London’s smell. It was beginning to feel comforting. The fading pain in his tattoo was eclipsed by the biting ache from his skinned legs. But, he had actually made it.
Fuck, yeah!
Okay. So maybe he had had a bit of an assist from the Old Testament presence he’d encountered, but he was here now. All in one piece. Moving slowly, he twisted himself upright and felt in his pocket. Primrose’s coins gave a subdued jangle, muffled in their leather purse, and Oyster suppressed a sickly smile. Maybe he could pull this off after all: this ridiculous string of one-step-at-a-times.
He pressed his back into the wall behind the desk. Breathing heavily, recovering his strength. Now that he had returned from der hinter, his bitten hand was swelling by the second. He counted to ten, listening for sounds that would indicate he had disturbed someone with his arrival, simultaneously waiting for the nausea to subside.
Beyond the concrete jigsaw of Lazenby’s shinehouse there came the occasional clockwork staccato of the clerks on patrol. But there was no sound from within the building itself, nothing to indicate that the door might spring open to admit a bunch of oven-ready cutthroats.
First things first. Syzygy.
Cautiously, he called her name.
There was an answering chirrup from somewhere within the desk.
She was still there.
He checked each of the desk’s drawers, but they were all locked. What he wouldn’t give for Lucas’s tools right about now. He stood woozily and made a quick circuit of the darkened room. At one end were a set of linen curtains suspended by hook-and-eye rings from long brass rods. Perhaps these will do?
As quietly as he could, he dragged Lazenby’s chair beneath the curtains and, breathing hard, was able to free one curtain rod from the hooks that suspended it at each end. It was hard work and with his swollen hand it was like trying to tie a knot while wearing boxing gloves.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
The rod overbalanced and its far end hit the floor with a heavy thunk. The curtains slid off with a metallic ring. Slipping down from the chair, he took the metal bar in his hands, ready to use it as a bludgeon, but no one answered the sound. Adrenaline broke over him and was replaced with another wave of nausea. He dropped to the floor, crawling on his knees to the tin bucket Lazenby used as a wastepaper basket, and retched, cold sweat beading his forehead. After long minutes, the feeling moved on. He sighed and Syzygy mewled from inside the desk.
“Hang on, love,” he said. “I’ll have you out of there in a minute.”
He picked up one of the curtain rings and examined it closely before slipping off the metal hook attached to it that held the curtain. It was steel, but no more than about twice the thickness of a very heavy-duty paper clip.
Without too much effort he was able to straighten the hook into a serviceable lock pick He took another ring and repeated the procedure, this time bending the hook roughly straight. He introduced a little hook at its tip by stepping on it.
“Hey there,” he called, and Syzygy twittered in response. She was in the top drawer. Leaning against the desk, he slid his makeshift tensioner and pick into the lock. With a huff, he used the former to keep the lock still as he raked its pins with the pick he held in his good hand. There was a series of clicks as the mechanism slipped into place, and with a pop the drawer slid open.
“There we go, baby,” he whispered.
Oyster allowed himself a smile of victory. He had the drawstring bag out on the desk and released Syzygy, pocketing Nonesuch’s whistle. The nuajin purred as she scuttled out of the bag and flew straight to her nest under Oyster’s arm. There was a moment of relief from the ill effects of the snake bite and Oyster slumped on the floor, resting his back against the desk.
He had his ink beetle. Now he needed a moment to catch his breath before moving on to what he’d come here to do in the first place: finding Motet. It was time to play a hunch.
There had been shineheads outside Lazenby’s when he’d arrived, and the boss lady herself had been shady as fuck when he’d asked about getting some himself. These all pointed to there being some imprisoned gebel on the premises. Perhaps even Motet himself.
Taking the curtain rod in hand, he hauled himself to his feet and examined the office door. It was locked from the outside, but he was able to make short work of that with his improvised tools. He opened it and peered around. In the low light, he was just able to make out a short corridor and the door through which Patteepan had led him out onto the roof. At the end of the hallway was a flight of stairs that reached down into the guts of the building itself.
Oyster picked his way down the stairs and poked his head into the main room where he’d eaten breakfast. At its far end, wrapped in blankets and fast asleep, was one of Lazenby’s crew. At least this guard was one hell of a sound sleeper.
Holding his breath, he stepped out of the stairwell and into the room, doing his best not to hit anything with the curtain rod. The floor was burnished concrete, cold underfoot, but at least he didn’t have to worry about floorboards creaking. He traced his steps along the rear wall, keeping as far from the slumbering sentry as possible, and soon he was on the stairs that led down to the cellar.
Carefully, he made his way down the polished cement steps hovering in the stairwell, waiting for his vision to adjust to the darkness. He couldn’t be sure there wasn’t another guard down here. He felt sick and crouched on his haunches, waiting for the moment to pass. A slippery, dizzy feeling enveloped his head, but the buzzing in his ears didn’t return.
The cellar was constructed from the same angular slabbed concrete as the rest of the building and embedded into the Greater London chalk. Redundant windows looked blindly into the earth itself. It was as if the building had just appeared here in the ground, thought Oyster. And perhaps it had.
Directly ahead of him was the room he had been held in; to his right, two more cement doors hung on great iron hinges, greased with oil as thick as treacle. He approached the nearest. They were both secured with serious-looking metal locks. There was no way he was going to be able to pick them. He prodded at them with the curtain rod, but they remained unmoving.
“Hey,” he called as loud as he dared. “Anyone there? Motet?” No reply.
He called again. He was trapped between his need not to wake the guard and the need to let Motet know that help was at hand.
He called again. And again. Still no response. He tried knocking at the door. He got to his knees to see if there was any sort of gap between the base of the door and the floor, but they were flush to each other.
“Keep it down,” came a voice from the cell next door, “you’ll wake all and sundry, gift us a kicking into the bargain.”
“Motet! Is that you?” hissed Oyster with glee. He sat up too quickly and things churned around his head drunkenly.
“And who wants to know?” came the response.
“Nonesuch sent me, I’m here to spring you,” replied Oyster with a dry heave.
“Obliged. But ’less you’ve the key to this door or a ball of glycerine in your breeches, you’re unlikely to get far.”
“Okay, okay.” Oyster thought for a second. “Can you kick off in there? Get Captain Sweatpants down here with us.”
“You sure ’bout this?”
“Abso-fucking-lootles,” replied Oyster.
There was a pause.
“Fire!” shouted Motet.
“Perfect,” hissed Oyster, “keep it up till I say.”
He crossed to the stairwell and hid by its exit. Gripping the curtain rod in both hands, he flattened himself against the ridges of the concrete wall. He wasn’t feeling his best, but he would just have to make do. He waited.
Motet continued to yell, but the racket was setting Oyster off. The buzzing seeped back into his ears and he leaned against the wall, trying to remain standing, his knees wobbling. Not now, he thought. Not now.
Finally, steps came echoing down the stairwell. He gripped the curtain rod even more tightly and his knuckles whitened.
“Shut it, glowworm!” shouted the guard. “I’m coming!”
As Oyster had calculated, Lazenby’s crew might not give much of a shit about Motet at a personal level, but he was still a valuable asset to them. This joker wouldn’t want him burnt to a crisp on his watch. The man hit the bottom step and Oyster jumped at him, swinging the curtain rod down on his head with full force. The man just had time to turn before the blow cracked him across the temple. The ruby-tinted glasses he was wearing flew onto the floor and shattered as the man hit the deck in a heap.
Oyster just had time to register his success before the buzzing in his ears rose to a crescendo and he too collapsed onto the cement floor.
* * *
Oyster came to. His head ached. There was a roaring sound and there was too much light. For an instant, he wasn’t sure exactly where he was. Instinctively, he felt for the weight of the coins in the leather bag. Still there. Lazenby really could learn a thing or two about security from Big Mickey.
“’Ceptional plan of yours,” said Motet as Oyster rubbed his eyes. “Didn’t grasp you wanted to escape into the cell with us. That’ll really keep ’em off balance. Very disruptive.”
Oyster opened his eyes. He saw the family resemblance between Motet and his sister immediately. The man filled the cramped cell. Like Nonesuch, he was flame-haired and his skin was strung with pearls that glittered in the dark. He wore a skirt fashioned from a Union flag and a black donkey jacket. He stood with his hands on his hips regarding Oyster. Behind him in the cell were another handful of gebel, looking malnourished and ill-treated.
“Typical of my sistren she’d pick looks over utility. So, how did sibling-dearest snare you?” he asked, his expression suddenly becoming puzzled. “Wait a second, are those my clothes?”
“Long story,” said Oyster, sitting up.
“Well, we gots nuthin’ but time upon our hands,” replied Motet with a sigh.
ESCAPE
So, apart from the pleasing arrangement of your visog, do you have any other special features?” said Motet.
“I do, as it happens,” said Oyster, reddening under the attention. “Now, if you strap your trap for long enough, perhaps I can have us out of here.”
He thought about what the presence had said to him. He closed his eyes.
“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted,” he mumbled.
“Quite the philosopher,” snipped Motet.
“Listen, mate. Do you need a lie-down or a biscuit or something?” Oyster said. “Or perhaps it’d suit you better to hang around here and wait for a rescue that meets your demanding standards.”
Motet’s light flared up and then settled with a purple tinge.
“’Pologies,” he said finally. “Your assist is appreciated. Bein’ illused by the very crew I aimed to bring down has been a humbling experience. Not at my best.”
He stretched out a hand.
“I’m Motet, by the way.”
“Oyster,” Oyster replied, clapping Motet’s hand with his unbitten one. “S’gonna be okay, we’ll think of something.”
There was a chirrup from under Oyster’s armpit. With a tickle, Syzygy emerged from beneath his armpit, crawled out from under his T-shirt and, with a crackle of wings, flew across to Motet, whose red eyes widened.
“By the holy excrement, is that my Syzygy! Is there anything of mine you haven’t boosted?” he growled.
He held out his hand and the ink beetle settled there with a flicker. She crawled around his neck, chittering at him affectionately. In response, Motet coo-ed and stroked her.
“Yeah, that’s a long story too,” said Oyster. “Wasn’t deliberate, I mean. I found her when I met your sis.”
Motet ignored him, focused as he was on his reunion. This was about as uncomfortable as running into your ex after they’d hooked up with someone else.
“She’s not well,” said Motet in an accusatory manner.
Oyster raised his wounded mitt. “I got bit. Neither of us are a hundred per cent right now.”
Motet tutted.
“Has he not been treating you properly, girl?” He tickled Syzygy on her belly.
Oyster shook his head and turned his back on them, ignoring the feeling of absence that crept up on him whenever he was apart from the ink beetle. He cracked his knuckles and closed his eyes. The ache in his swollen hand intensified. Intentional vacuity, whatever that is, here I come. He drew in a breath of dank cellar air and held it, trying to place himself away from the sounds and the smells here. Okay. Okay.
Motet and the nuajin drifted into the background. He found himself thinking of a day that he and Cécile had spent in town together with Paris. It was before Lucas had abandoned them. They had been on Tooting Common, in summer. A breeze had stirred amongst the trees, shaking the leaves.
“What are you doing?” said Motet, interrupting Oyster’s reverie. Syzygy slipped under the gebel’s collar to rest. Oyster tried to ignore it.
“Not very much, if you keep gassing,” he replied. “Do us both a favour and shut it for ten, will you?”
Motet huffed.
Oyster shut his eyes. But the sense of Motet’s silent annoyance was overwhelming.
“Can you not do that either?”
“What?”
“I can literally hear you sulking.”
“Am not.”
Oyster sighed. He had not tried this without the map, but the presence seemed like she knew what she was talking about. You have everything that you need. It was time to put what she had told him to the test.
He closed his eyes again. Picturing himself on the other side of the door, he tried to empty his head of any other thoughts, but it was hard. Closing his eyes made the symptoms from his snake bite more unpleasant. He still felt dizzy and the pain in his sore hand kept absorbing all his attention. Suddenly, his tattoo came alive with pain. Wincing, he rubbed at it. There was falling sensation as though he’d tripped up in a dream.
“What the—?” Motet’s voice was muffled, suddenly coming from behind him.
Oyster’s eyes snapped open. The light was low, but there was enough for him to see that he was now outside the cell, standing in front of the guard. The man had dragged a chair down here from upstairs to keep watch and then promptly fallen asleep on it. His old-timey pistol lay in his lap. The man’s eyes opened.
Oyster was almost as surprised as the guard to find himself standing there, but he still had the jump on him. In the shocked instant before the guard realised what was happening, Oyster kicked the gun, propelling it from the man’s lap and across the room.
The guard got to his feet, but Oyster smacked him backwards with a single blow. He yelped in agony, but the man connected with the angled ridges of concrete behind him and collapsed in a heap. Oyster’s good hand hurt almost as much as the bitten one from the punch, and he rubbed his bruised knuckles. He was running out of hands.
Hurriedly, he grabbed the man’s weapon and went through his pockets, finding a brass key ring that hosted a handful of keys of varying shapes and sizes. Then he used the man’s own belt to secure his wrists behind his back.
It was only then that he allowed himself to bask in the fact that he had been able to use his wild talent successfully for the first time. He wished the old lady had been here to see it.
He unlocked the door to Motet’s cell. The gebel clapped theatrically and stepped through the door with an approving expression. The three other prisoners behind him followed blinking into the low light of the cellar. They regarded Oyster with suspicion and said nothing.
“Colour me impressed, Mr Oyster,” said Motet with a whistle. “How, by the Great Tree, did you accomplish that?”
