Jago (83 page)

In among the general populace, mostly overawed to be inside such a giant structure and in the presence of so many VIPs, Orlando picked up on the tensions of the moment. There were a lot of peelers, uniformed and otherwise, and even more unofficial hard-nuts. Among the Puritans, forming a guard for Strawjack Crowe, was Rutland Stryng, his Webley slung in a holster on the front of his broad belt. Stryng’s eyes ranged constantly over the crowd, and Orlando took care not to be wherever they were directed.

One wrong word from the platform, and…

The Dome was a famous folly, which the various factions who had gained momentary power during the Civil War blamed on each other. It contained exhibitions in celebration of British achievement, mounted tattily at a point when the country’s main achievement was tearing itself apart. The project had been initiated in a time of plenty and allotted a vastly bloated budget, but its construction had dragged on, interrupted by the worst of the fighting, and had been rushed to completion, years after the deadline, by the Prime Minister’s order that everything be done on the cheap. One reason for the crowd tension was the possibility that the whole structure would collapse on itself. Every brickie and plasterer in the land had charged double-overtime on this scam, at a time when they were really needed to rebuild the towns and cities more or less levelled by battles. They had still done a dodgy job Orlando’s DIY-crazed Uncle Fred would have laughed at.

He saw Miss Rhodes, dolled up significantly, wearing a straw hat with a ‘Votes for Women’ band. He hoped she still had her scissors. Jeperson had salted the crowd with his own people, but so many agents of so many factions were here that Orlando wondered if any real people had slipped in by mistake.

The lights dimmed, and Strawjack Crowe took the stage.

No official business could be conducted in the land until prayer had been given, which was how Crowe managed to get top billing at any ceremony. Even the wireless weather forecast had to start with a lengthy blessing.

‘Lord God’s Will be done in this Kingdom,’ pronounced Crowe, in tones suitable for a public execution. ‘Obedience to His design is Our Lot, lest we be cast down into the Burning Pit of Chaos.’

Then Elaine Paige sang ‘Amazing Grace’. Crowe glared from the wings, like a man who knew he would in the morning have the power to ban all singing of any sort forever.

The Prime Minister bounced on stage, smile cutting into his cheeks, and greeted the Lord Mayor Elect with a hearty hug and a pumping handshake.

From back here, Orlando couldn’t tell if it was the real Whittington. If so, it was a miracle he didn’t try to throttle the PM.

Then Ben Elton did five minutes of inoffensive jokes about fatherhood and fridges. People looked in their programmes to see if it was permitted to laugh.

The Queen descended from the eaves on a Peter Pan harness, looking radiantly furious in white. She was spotlit against a three-storey image of the Sainted Diana, and the National Anthem quickly segued into Elton John’s ‘Hymn to a Princess’. Among the ranks of dignitaries on stage, Geodfroy Arachnid sent out a million watts of smug hypocrisy.

The Archbishop of London and a couple of pages came on stage, with the Lord Mayor’s ceremonial robes and chains. The Archbish muttered something that wasn’t sufficiently amplified, and the kids weighed the Lord Mayor Elect down with the full kit, which he assumed. The Queen hung the chain of office around the man’s neck.

‘Now,’ said Crowe, ‘Lord Mayor Whittington has an announcement.’

The new-made Lord Mayor took a wireless-mike, and declared that the London Assembly was dissolved and subordinated to the Parliament of the Marches, and that the military might of the capital was at the disposal of the Prime Minister for the subjugation of the rebellious provinces.

Sean Connery growled, and five rugby-players in Metropolitan Police uniforms jumped on him. Orlando thought that the Scotsman had been scalped, but it was just his rug falling off.

The Lord Mayor continued to outline a programme which included the appointment of three Puritans as the city’s Entertainments Licensing Commission; the recriminalisation of buggery, gaming and mendicancy; the contracting-out of public transport, policing and health services to private enterprise or charity; and the replacement of the Monarch with a theological figurehead known as the Pontiff of Diana.

Ben Elton laughed, and Rutland Stryng shock-prodded him into catatonia.

The Lord Mayor ordered the Welsh delegates to turn out their pockets and give back the silverware.

Orlando was certain this wasn’t Whittington.

The Prime Minister beamed fit to bust his tummy-buttons, and Strawjack Crowe whispered orders to his cadre of Puritan heavies. Ripples of discontent spread through the crowd, but any protests were stifled by Puritans with hammers, Dianaheads with lamé garrotes or policemen with shock-prods.

Orlando saw Miss Rhodes punched in the midriff by a Puritan Elder who upbraided her as a vile strumpet of Babylon, citing the disgusting shortness of her skirt. He tore off her hat and stamped on it.

‘Now, now,’ said the PM. ‘All’s fair. This was voted on. We must respect the will of the people.’

‘What people?’ someone shouted.

‘Our people,’ said the PM. ‘We know best. It’s very encouraging Mr Whittington has recognised that. Now, I think it would be super if we could all join in prayer. Let us look up to Heaven with thanks for His guidance.’

The roof of the Dome ruptured.

Everyone
did
look up.

A blinding streak shot down at the stage, and smote the Lord Mayor. His robes burned in an instant, his face and flesh melted like wax. His still-standing skeleton was a blackened armature of wire and clockwork.

The burning Lord Mayor began his speech again, stuttering.

‘He’s artificial,’ came a shout. ‘He’s a clockwork waxwork!’

A black shape came down through the hole in the roof. Dr Shade’s autogiro. The Doctor hovered beneath banks of lights, casting a thousand stark shadows on the stage and the crowd. The electric cannon that had blasted the automaton was good for only one charge at a time, so a half-dozen other weapons came into play. The autogiro spat projectiles and darts from an assortment of black tubes, while spraying out liquids that turned in mid-air into sticky nets.

Burning holes burst across the giant Diana portrait. Black smoke-bombs exploded inside the Dome. The Prime Minister’s smile froze, but Crowe was jumping around, giving orders.

Following Dr Shade’s autogiro came a rain of men in fatigues, abseiling down to the stage. Jeperson’s people.

Dr Shade zoomed about, crashing through a giant papier mache butterfly, hurling fiery darts with accuracy. Orlando saw Geodfroy Arachnid, who was sighting a blow-pipe at the Queen, speared off his tiered seat. He was stuck to the giant Diana-mouth, which seemed to suck him through into limbo as the image tore.

There was panic and brawling all around.

Orlando hid under an overturned whelk stall. Rough hands pulled him out, and he found himself looking up close at the angry face of Rutland Stryng.

‘I remember you,’ he said. ‘This is all your fault.’

‘You’re a professional, aren’t you?’

Stryng nodded.

‘No more pay packets,’ Orlando said.

On stage, Strawjack Crowe was jittering, a thousand shadow-darts in his face and torso. Strange little hypodermic needles stuck in and emptied into the bloodstream. Orlando didn’t like to think what the Doctor had filled them with.

‘You don’t have a bounty here,’ Orlando said.

‘I agree. But I have a hostage.’

‘There’s always that.’

Stryng’s Webley was at Orlando’s temple.

‘Rutland Stryng,’ came a shout.

Across the floor strode Captain Lytton.

‘Here’s where we find out,’ muttered Stryng.

Without letting go of his hold on Orlando’s throat, Stryng turned, sliding as much of his body behind Orlando as possible, extending his arm to fire. Lytton reached for his side-arm.

A shot roared past Orlando’s ear.

Lytton stood still, as if shocked. Orlando, deafened, thought the whole melee had gone silent.

Then Stryng let him go.

Lytton holstered his pistol. Orlando looked over his shoulder and saw Stryng had taken a ball in the forehead. His knees gave out and he fell.

Noise rushed back into Orlando’s head.

* * *

When the real Whittington appeared, everyone was grateful. The Prime Minister sweated gallons as he denied knowledge of the substitution. The Queen looked stern and pleased at once, posing in front of the still-burning Diana face. The Archbishop dug out the hot chain of office from the trashed automaton and handed it over.

Dr Shade disappeared into the night, leaving a great many fires and not a few deserving casualties. Orlando still didn’t understand the shadowman, and had an unsettled feeling that his cure could be far worse than the disease a few years down the line. The city owed its continued independence, probably its continued existence, to a creature far beyond human notions of right and wrong. From now on, as in dark times long ago, the shade was upon London, and would be a final court of appeal for the desperate and the high-minded. And Orlando had asked him back.

Jeperson, in union jack tunic and boots, was in charge of rounding up the few reliable coppers and restoring order. He got everyone calm until Whittington could get on stage and apologise for the poor show. The true Lord Mayor made his real speech, which was greeted with cheers.

Orlando got out of the Dome.

He found Lytton, walking away.

‘Thanks, Captain,’ he said.

Lytton shrugged. ‘Had to be done.’

‘I think you clipped my ear.’

Lytton examined the wound.

‘Your looks aren’t spoiled.’

‘Where are you going?’

Lytton looked away from the Dome, and said, ‘Somewhere green. What about you?’

Orlando thought of slate and stone, tarmac and brick, shingle and concrete. And the shadow that had fallen upon the city.

‘Green, ugh,’ he said. ‘Give me somewhere grey any day.’

COMING SOON FROM TITAN BOOKS

by KIM NEWMAN

It is 1976 and Kate Reed is on the set of Francis Ford Coppola’s movie
Dracula.
She helps a young vampire boy, Ion Popescu, who leaves Transylvania for America. In the States, Popescu becomes Johnny Pop and attaches himself to Andy Warhol, inventing a new drug which confers vampire powers on its users…

A brand-new novel in the
Anno Dracula
series, this fourth instalment takes the series to Andy Warhol’s New York and Orson Welles’ Hollywood.