Be My Enemy (15 page)

“All you all right, Mr. Singh?”

“Yeah.” He had fired, had killed, without thinking. “I'm okay.”

“Good shooting, sir.”

Everett went to examine the dead things. The sawed-off shotguns were brutal weapons at such short range. The bodies were terribly mutilated, but there was no mistaking the creatures. Dogs. They were lean and mean and hungry. One had the foxy look of a terrier, another the perky ears of a sheepdog. The third was larger and had the curly coat and long ears of a standard poodle, but they all looked halfway between their original breed and their wolf ancestry. The canine DNA pool wasn't so much a pool as a shallow puddle. Within a dozen more dog generations, they would all converge on the wolf within.

Blackness leaked from the eyes and ears and nostrils of the dead terrier and formed a pool under its head. The pool was moving, seething, as if it was alive with millions of insects. Moving, piling up, changing shape. This was not blood. Everett stepped back. Now the black was pouring from the eyes and ears and nostrils of the other dogs, forming streams that flowed across the bricks of the drive, flowing toward each other, flowing with purpose and intelligence. The streams merged with the pool of boiling black that surrounded the dead terrier.

“To me, Mr. Singh,” Sharkey said. Everett stepped away from the mass of seething black. “Can you reload a shotgun?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do so, expeditiously. You will need it.”

Everett broke the gun and slid in two fresh cartridges. Sharkey kept both his shotgun and his revolver-rifle trained on the black. The surface was bubbling now. Shapes appeared out of the black, then broke apart and dissolved into the liquid. Shapes like tiny hands, and fox heads, and bird wings, and open jaws, howling out of the darkness.

The black shuddered and formed into the shape of a dog's head, straining to break free from the liquid. It slumped back into shapelessness. Then the blackness shivered again and sprang into being: a dog, wolf, hellhound, black and huge, head held low and hungry.

“‘Upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH,’” Sharkey said. “Get ye to the slime pits, spawn of Siddim!”

He fired, Everett a split second behind. The hell-wolf flew apart in an explosion of black liquid. Blackness dripped from the branches of the overgrown trees and ran down the front of the house and the sleek curves of the abandoned Audi.

“‘And he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver,’” Sharkey declared, putting up his guns.

The drips of black ooze ran along the gaps in the brickwork of the drive. The trickles merged, flowed together into streams, into a pool around the dead terrier. It bubbled up into a blister, patterns raced across the surface, then it spasmed and snapped back into the shape of the black hell-wolf.

“Back out of here, Mr. Singh,” Sharkey said. “Slowly. Keep me between you and that hell-spawned abomination. Do not take your eyes off it.”

The hell-wolf crouched. Hackles rose. It bared black teeth. Black liquid dropped from its fangs. It growled. The growl sounded like dead things being torn open.

“Slow and steady, Mr. Singh. I have it covered. I can't kill it, but I can inconvenience it. How many shells do you have?”

“Four.”

“The same, and what's left in the revolver.”

Not enough
, Everett thought. The hell-wolf sank lower, its legs tightening to leap.

“On my word, run. Run like every devil in the nine hells are after your soul.”

“But Sharkey—

“You're the only one can get the ship off this God-forsaken world. Ready.”

And the hell-wolf leaped. It seemed to fill all the sky, hanging in midair. In that moment, Everett knew that Sharkey was dead and he was dead and, worse than dead, they'd be devoured, possessed; they were doomed to be meat puppets to the blackness inside, like the dogs. And then there was a high-pitched screech that dropped Everett to his knees, the sound so sharp that he was forced to clap his hands to his ears. He watched as the hell-wolf turned into a big flying splash of black that dropped in heavy rain to the ground.

The air curdled like heat haze and turned into figures in helmets and battle packs and copper-colored combat armor. Six soldiers moved to surround Everett and Sharkey, weapons raised and aimed. Sharkey carefully set down his shotgun and rifle and raised his hands. He nodded for Everett to do the same. Two soldiers checked out the splash of black on the bricks. One held some kind of scanning device. The other aimed a gun at the black stain, a gun like none Everett had ever seen before.

“No activity, ma’am,” said the figure with the scanner. “It's dead. Permanently.” The second figure swung the weird weapon over its shoulder into a retaining clip.

One of the soldiers stepped forward and touched its collar. The elaborate helmet unfolded like an insect's mouthparts.
Very
Halo, Everett thought. Inside the armor was a woman in her early thirties with a square face and blonde hair going black at the roots. It was the kind of face you saw at an elementary school or looking for a parking space at Tesco, not in combat armor, having just splattered some evil dark liquid soul zombie all over the forecourt of a ruined country house.

“I am Lieutenant Elena Kastinidis of Agistry Unit 27, Oxford Command,” the woman said. “You are under arrest.”

E
verett sat on the ledge of the medieval stone window and looked out over the quadrangle. Evening sent long shadows out across the neat lawns and raked gravel paths, out from the great specimen trees in the Fellows' Garden. The last of the daylight caught the steeple of the chapel and the towers where the college fronted St. Giles. As the darkness deepened Everett could see the defense field flickering like an aurora against the twilight.

“Hey Dad,” Everett whispered. “Made it to Oxford.”

Elena Kastinidis had been brisk and brutal after taking Everett and Sharkey into custody.

“Strip,” she had ordered.

“What?” Everett had said.

“Strip,” the officer said again, in a voice that would not repeat the order a third time. There was no place Everett could hide himself from the soldiers, but he could turn his back on Lieutenant Elena Kastinidis. Already Sharkey had removed his hat and was shrugging off his coat.

“‘Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame,’” Sharkey quoted.

Jacket, shirt, and ship shorts slipped off. Everett unbuckled his Bona Togs boots and wiggled out of his leggings. He stood shivering in his underwear. There was no warmth in the winter sun, and the wind was keen.

“Everything,” the lieutenant said.

“This is child abuse, you know. There are laws about this.”

The soldiers laughed.

“Take them off, or I take them off you.” Lieutenant Kastinidis tapped a combat knife buckled to the utility belt of her armor.
Everett hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his underpants and pushed them down. He stepped out of them, naked and exposed. This was hell. This was the hell of the Bourne Green changing room after a game. This was the hell of the noisy guys who didn't mind taking their clothes off around others, the ones who flicked towels and jumped on their friends when they were butt naked and wrestled them to the floor and grabbed each other's nipples and made animal hooting noises. This was the hell of the showers, of keeping your back to everyone in case the pummeling hot water had started anything you'd be embarrassed to show, of not knowing when you stepped out whether the others had hidden your clothes. It was the hell of shame and exposure and being completely naked and alone.

“Hands behind head.”

Everett locked his fingers behind his skull. The soldier with the scanning device worked up from Everett's toenails to his scalp, carefully, slowly, minutely, circling him. The second, the one with the hell-wolf-killing gun, held the weapon twenty centimeters from the bridge of Everett's nose. Everett tried to keep his eyes from making contact with the eyes inside the helmet. Then the scanner worked over his clothes and boots, slowly, carefully, painstakingly. Everett held himself perfectly still.

“Clean. Nahn free.”

The armed soldier swept the gun up and away and clicked it into a cradle on his back.
Naan?
Everett said to himself.
Like, Punjabi bread?

“You can get dressed again,” the lieutenant said.

Everett almost dove into his clothes. He hopped as he pulled on leggings and tried to jam on boots that seemed to fight against his frozen feet. The shivers started as he was fastening the frogging on his cavalry-style jacket. Glancing over at Sharkey, he saw the American pull on his caped coat. Two other soldiers held his guns. Sharkey put on his hat, adjusted the set of its feather to precisely the right angle, and straightened his cuffs. Dignity restored. Cool under fire.
Everett envied that. But he was still burning with shame, and he was angry. He flipped up the hood of his quilted great coat and took a step toward the officer.

“What was that about? What is this? Who the hell are you?”

Lieutenant Kastinidis took Everett's anger as lightly as February drizzle.

“That's not a question you ask me, boy. I ask you, and you answer. An Earth 3 Class 88 cargo airship up on Aston Hill.”

“You know—”

“We've had you on radar since you first popped up over Northeast London. We'd better go have a word with your captain. Call him, let him know what's happened.”

“Her,” Sharkey said. “Captain Anastasia Sixsmyth.”

Lieutenant Elena Kastinidis was unimpressed.

“Move out.” She waved her armored troopers forward. They carefully stepped around the shiny black stain on the brickwork of the drive. Everett noticed that Sharkey had left the hare and the pheasant on the roof of the abandoned Audi. They didn't seem good eating any more.

Captain Anastasia raged. She raged at Sharkey for being captured. She raged at Sharkey and Everett for bringing sharpies back to the ship. She raged that armed strangers were holding her crew, her daughter, and herself at gunpoint. Most of all she raged that she was being issued orders on her own bridge

“This heading.” Lieutenant Elena Kastinidis touched her heads-up display glasses and information flowed down her finger onto the palm of her hand.
Cool
, Everett thought.

“Make it so.” Captain Anastasia almost spat the words. Sen hesitated. “Make it so!” the captain snapped. Sen entered the heading and pushed the thrust levers forward. Everett felt
Everness
tremble under him.

Lieutenant Kastinidis bent close to Mchynlyth's homespun
engineering rig that hooked the jumpgun and Dr. Quantum together.

“This I recognize.” She tapped the jumpgun. “This I do not.” She prodded Dr. Quantum.

“Don't touch that. It's mine,” Everett said. At once he regretted it. But she had recognized the jumpgun. She knew what it was and what it could do.
My instinct was right
, Everett thought.
My instinct is always right.

“I'll touch what I like, son.”

It must be something about uniforms, Everett thought. Leah-Leanne-Leona and Moustache Mulligan had displayed the same sense of entitlement when they had sat in his mum's kitchen and demanded tea and toast after the disappearance of Everett's father.
No, not uniforms
, Everett thought.
Sharpies. They're the same the universes over.
He was starting to think in Airish, he realized.

“Go ahead,” Everett countered, “provided you're comfortable with the possibility that hitting the wrong button could send us anywhere in the Panoply.”

It was a lie; a jump gate couldn't be opened without the control panel, and Everett had password locked that, but it was enough to make Lieutenant Kastinidis step back from Everett's desk. She stared at him.

“Just who are you?”

“Everett Singh,” Everett said. “And I's a navigator.” He remembered the pride in Sen's voice when she had announced that she was
Everness
's pilot. It was a glow. It restored a little self-worth after the humiliation at the ruined house. Sen glanced over at Everett from her position at the flight controls. She gave a tiny smile, flashed her eyebrows.
Bona omi.

Lieutenant Kastinidis went to the great window and stood before it, hands clasped behind her back. Everett saw Sharkey bristle with rage. That was the captain's position, reserved for the master and commander of
Everness.
The ship flew low, two hundred meters
over the ruined land. Highways, factories, villages, and estates lay abandoned to nature—or whatever nature had become. Sunlight winked from dead windows. Everett's breath caught. Far ahead a faint curtain of light flickered like an aurora on the horizon. It looked like pale lightning arcing across the sky, forking and reforking into glowing streamers, hard to see against the westering sun, fusing and splitting into a web of light.

“What is that?” Everett asked.

“That's the Oxford defense field,” the Lieutenant said. “So far the Nahn haven't found a way around it. I don't think they're even trying anymore. It's been over a year since the last massed assault.”

“Nahn. I heard you say that word before.”

“You did, son. And you'll hear it a lot more.” Lieutenant Kastinidis touched a communications panel on the chest plate of her armor. “Unit 27 to Oxford defense grid. We're on approach. You should have us on visuals.” A pause. “Yes, it's an airship.”

Now Everett could see the city behind the shivering walls, the low light catching the college towers, the chapel spires, the cloisters and quadrangles and gardens, the parks and the glitter of the two rivers running toward their meeting.

“Ahead slow,” Captain Anastasia said, as if to remind herself that she could still give orders. Sen pulled back on the throttles.
Everness
drifted slowly over suburbs and streets as empty and decaying as any in London. The airship was coming in from the southeast, over the Thames and the water meadows around Christchurch College. Ahead, the defense grid shivered like oil on water. Outside were buildings like snapped, rotted teeth, pieces of skull, and dead bones. Inside was movement, life: wind turbines standing taller than the trees across Christchurch meadow, with cows grazing at the rushy thin winter grass around their foundations; vehicles and pedestrians and even some bicycles; early lights in windows. And along the line where the defense field touched the ground, Everett saw a ring of black. Glossy, liquid black, frozen into
drips and splashes. It was the same black liquid that Everett had seen earlier in the day, splattered all over the driveway of a middle-class country retreat.

“It's an EM field,” he said.

“Explain, Mr. Singh,” Captain Anastasia said.
Everness
drew closer to the flickering lightning.

“An electromagnetic field. It scrambles compu…comptator circuitry. It'll fry—” Everett almost bit his tongue.

“Fry what, son?” Lieutenant Kastinidis said. She nodded. One soldier moved between Everett and Dr. Quantum. The other deftly unplugged the Infundibulum.

“No!” Everett yelled. The soldier restrained him. Sharkey was out of his seat.
Click click click.
Weapons drawn. Lieutenant Kastinidis turned Dr. Quantum over in her hands. She spoke into the back of her hand. “We're coming in, drop the field.”

The wall of soft lighting flickered and went out. Looking down, Everett could see more soldiers in power armor spilling out of troop carriers to take up positions along the inside of the black zone.
Everness
slid slowly over the colleges of Oxford. The city had always seemed to Everett like the board for some complex intellectual game, the squares and cloisters and walls of the colleges. The architecture was similar to the Oxford of Everett's world—the spires a little taller, the quadrangles a bit bigger, the cloisters somewhat darker—but the arrangement was different. There were colleges here unknown in Everett's world. Sen maneuvered
Everness
in over the dome of the Radcliffe Camera and Broad Street, descending over peaceful college gardens to the designated mooring at Museum Road.

“Clear,” Sharkey said. Lieutenant Kastinidis touched the back of her hand. Behind the ship, the defense grid sprang to life again, a ghostly wall cutting across the pastures and bare winter trees of the college meadows.

Everett went to Sharkey's rearview monitor and pulled it down on its swivel arm. He dialed up the magnification as far as it would
go, zooming in on the blackness splashed up like dark winter slush against the shimmering defense grid. The splatter zone; the hellwolf blown into black ooze by what must have been a focused version of this defense field; the black, seething, boiling mass crawling across the docks and wharves of Docklands, drawn by an evil tide toward that terrible dark tower. The patterns came together in his mind.

“Nahn,” he whispered. “Of course. Nanotechnology.”

The light was almost gone now.
Everness
's navigation lights flashed beyond the chapel roof, moored over Museum Green. Those lights flickered against the aurora glow of the defense field. The darkening sky behind the skyline of towers and spires and college rooftops looked as if it burned with cold fire. Even in this empty, dark-haunted world, the university city was beautiful, like a last flame in a storm or a lone voice singing in darkness. Cambridge was the best science university, but Tejendra had been sent to Oxford. He had been the pride of the family. Look, our son, our boy at the greatest university! A Singh! A Bathwala boy! An Oxford physicist! It did not matter that they didn't understand what Tejendra did there; it was where he did it. Even if his path in time led away from that city, to London and a different university, Oxford was a thing about which Bebe Ajeet and her sisters could boast. If the family was disappointed that Tejendra had not made it to be a fellow there, the edge had been taken off of that disappointment by the certain expectation that Everett would. Two Singhs at Oxford! That would ring around the rafters of the Tottenham Punjabi Community Association until the end of time.

And here he was, the second Singh. In a medieval room, in a college, looking out over a quadrangle. But this quadrangle, this college were not of Tejendra's Oxford, and the door and windows of this medieval room were locked. Everett went to the door. He rattled it. Ancient oak, firmly bolted on the outside. “We're going to have to
hold you until the prefect has a chance to speak with you,” Lieutenant Kastinidis had said. The old college room was comfortable, if a bit studenty. Comfortable and very secure. Everett would have kicked the door, but five-hundred-year-old timber would have done more damage to him than he could have done to it.