Personal Darkness (28 page)

Malach moved out of time.

Once or twice, pedestrians passed him. Startled and wary in the fog, they stared or averted their eyes, for in this atmosphere he was even more inimical, and more correct. Dark and fog might have made him up.

The fog had crossed the river now, knitted over.

Phantom things slid along the water. Lamps like moons rose, melted, and set.

Malach turned from the bank, down among the side streets.

Beyond the last lamp, a stretch of shadow. In the shadow, a voice. Not loud, quite reasonable.

"Give us yer bag."

And then a dog barked, the noise the product of a small barrel chest.

Malach stopped, and Enki and Oskar came up to him like two drifts of mist.

Down in the shadow, a breathless woman said, "I haven't got much. It won't help you."

"What you got?" asked a second voice.

"A couple of pounds—"

"Let's see."

"No, please. It's my bag. It's private."

The dog barked again.

"Keep your rotten dog off," said the first voice.

The second said, "You scared of
that
! I tell you, lady, I'm going to kill your dog. I'll skin it."

It was possible to see into the shadow, after all.

The woman was fattish, with glasses, and not young. The dog stood at her ankle, waiting to defend her, trembling. It had a round white and tan body and pointed fox's ears.

The black youth aimed a playful mock kick at it, and it cowered away. It was in the worst predicament, the dog, a coward wanting to be brave.

The white youth spat. "Fucking ugly dog, that is, missus. Better off out of it."

"Please—" said the woman. She pulled the dog back by its lead, as if she would pull it into her fat body.

"Yeah, I'll skin the fucking white dog," said the black boy. He had a knife now, the shadow-fog reflected on it wetly.

The woman held out her lumpy handbag.

"Here. Take this. It's all I've got."

"Oh, she wants us to have it now."

The black boy said, "Now give me yer dog."

Malach touched the backs of the wolfhounds' two stony skulls.

Without hesitation they trotted forward.

The white youth danced around, alerted by some current of new air. Out of the fog he saw something go up and up, and on it the face of a grey-white fog beast, long teeth and glowing eyes. It rose until it was over his head, and then two iron paws came down on his shoulders.

He made a sound. The beast growled into his face. Its breath smelled of meat and smoke.

The black boy, too, had turned in amazement, and at the same moment the other pale dog reared up to meet him. He shrieked and tried to pull away, but the sheer weight of the animal held him pinned.

The knife wavered in his hand.

"What's happening?" said the woman. "What is it?" The little dog on the lead was wagging its tail now.

The black boy tried to get his knife right, so he could push it into the great stone dog that leaned on him.

Then he felt the knife drawn lightly from his grip. He heard the knife break in two, and the two pieces clink on the street. A hand closed on the back of his neck, mild, almost loving. A man said softly into his ear, "Your people were hung on a cross. You should know better."

The stone dog swung suddenly off and away.

Malach led the black boy forward to where the other wolfhound had the white boy, blocked, shivering. He had dropped the bag. "Enki."

As the second wolfhound cascaded away, the little dog on the lead gave a pleased high yap.

Malach put his right hand on the white boy's neck. He stood between them, the youths, benign, priestly. Then he slammed their heads together. Something happened. He let both of them fall down.

"What's going on?" said the woman.

"It's all right," said Malach.

The fog and her eyesight had hidden it from her. He picked up her bag and took it over.

The little dog jumped and panted, and Oskar lowered his head to it, licking it once end to end.

Malach gave the woman her bag.

"Thank you," she said, "thank you, Officer."

She pulled the little dog, bouncing and excited, away into the fog. Something made her hurry.

Malach stepped between the two dead muggers, his dogs running now to keep up with him.

FAINTLY A WINDOW SHONE DOWN ON them, that was where the light came from, about five stories up. Possibly someone had seen, and phoned the police. But it was a forlorn hope. More likely the light, probably of some office, had only been forgotten.

Within, immersed in her terror, Rachaela knew a bizarre curiosity. What would Althene do?

So far, she had only antagonized them.

Did she even understand that such an affront was conceivable?

A kind of electricity came from Althene. Rachaela experienced the tingling of it. But it was not fear.

Too arrogant to be afraid.

The five men were slouching there in front of them, liking their own strength, enjoying the threat more than the action. Turning themselves on. Only one of them was as tall as Althene, but in this type of encounter, that was not going to matter.

"I like the bird with the big tits," said the one in rompers.

"The other's better. Big girl."

"I bet she's got a big cunt. Take two of us at once."

They laughed again, they had overlooked Althene's patronizing remark. They began to move forward.

Althene spoke.

"Wouldn't you like to see what you're getting first?"

They checked, chuckling disbelievingly.

Rompers moved out. "You show us then.''

Althene opened her coat. She started to raise her skirt, very slowly.

They encouraged her, whistled. They watched the long slim leg appear above her high leather boot. Rachaela saw, also. Just below the stocking top, was a garter of dark green lace. And in the garter, a tiny gun.

Althene had the gun neatly in her hand. She let her skirt fall.

Four of the men had stopped laughing. But Rompers was not impressed.

"Look. It's a toy. It's a fake."

The gun was silver with a white bone handle. It looked too elegant to be anything dangerous.

Rachaela said, "Althene—"

"Tell you what," said Rompers, "she's showed me hers. Now she can see mine. I've got a big one, darling. Just the size for you and your friend."

He moved forward again, and the other four were there behind him.

The gun gave a little click, like a pip breaking between the teeth. Then Althene fired into Rompers's body.

Deafening red in the smoky light, blood jetted from his genitals. He gave a shrill squeak. He flopped backward and the others split away from him. They paused in odd attitudes, half crouching, looking at him. He screamed once, and then he only lay on the pavement under the fog.

The men ran away abruptly, like a herd of animals frightened by something unseen.

"What have you done?" said Rachaela.

"Don't you know?" said Althene. Her voice sounded deeper, rougher, less glamorous. She raised her skirt once more and set the gun back into the preposterous garter. "That will keep me warm."

The man on the ground did not move. Was he dead?

Rachaela glanced up. No one at the window.

"We'll have to call an ambulance." She tried to speak sensibly, as though Althene had done something normal, like twisting her ankle.

"Why?"

"You shot someone."

"So I did. Did you love him?"

Rachaela said, "That isn't an answer."

"Yes."

"He was scum," said Rachaela.

"Good-bye," said Althene, "to the scum. He will be dead in a few minutes. I shot him in his big penis, of which he was so proud."

Rachaela began to shake. She thought, distantly,
So much for rationality
.

"Don't faint," said Althene. "We'll go and find a drink for you."

"For me? I'm here with a wild beast and it offers me a drink."

"How complimentary. What beast?"

"That gun—" said Rachaela, uselessly.

"Custom made. A Derringer Remington. One of the smallest weapons in the world, bar the hatpin. A leopardess, perhaps. Come. The club I spoke of isn't far."

"You want me to walk into some private club with you as if nothing—as if—as if you had—" Rachaela stopped. The alley whirled, settled sickeningly, and was still. Althene had her by the shoulders.

"He would have stuck himself into you," said Althene. "And elsewhere, quite soon, into some other woman, less able to cast off what he did to her than you. Requiescat in pace."

No one had come. No sirens or rushing feet.

Althene let her go. Instead her warm and scented

Rachaela's lips.

"Walk with me as if you will live for many hundreds of years," said Althene. "Walk with me as if you have seen it all before. And as if you love and trust me."

"But I don't."

"Then make believe, little girl.
Pretend
."

They walked.

The darkness and the lit window drew behind and the body of the dying or dead rapist was hidden by a twist of buildings. Dim notes of buses, cars, far off. Music from a cassette.

They reached a shut door under a lamp.

Althene rang the bell.

The shaking was fading off, as if something that had had Rachaela in its teeth was now growing tired.

Rachaela had a double brandy, and then they drank china tea. It was a long room with comfortable chairs and small waxed tables, a luminous bar, prints of ancient houses.

At any moment, for the first three quarters of an hour, Rachaela expected someone to burst in, crying of a corpse close by. No one did.

Althene was gracious and attentive, but she did not really speak for a long while.

In an alcove a man sat playing a guitar, softly and beautifully. It seemed he might also be one of the scatter of patrons, who simply played there to please himself.

Rachaela, an insect newborn, hardened. She felt only sad, like a child who had realized it would die. But this was the reverse of that. It was as if she had learned that death was not for her.

Finally, she said, "I suppose murder isn't anything fresh in your life."

Althene smiled in the old mysterious way. She had readjusted her voice, jettisoning harshness and banality.

"Now you think I've slain a hundred men."

"Have you?"

"I would have to count them up. Wouldn't that look like boasting?"

"With the gun?"

"With whatever was to hand," said Althene.

"The handle of the gun is bone," said Rachaela.

"Don't worry. The bone is human."

"I'm not afraid of you," said Rachaela. "I should be, probably. But I'm not."

"I should hate you to be afraid of me."

"Yes." Rachaela drank her tea. Althene watched her. Her classical face was serene, her dark eyes only like still waters, running inevitably deep. "Don't the Scarabae frown on a homosexual liaison?"

Althene lifted her eyebrows. She looked amused now.

"Not in itself," she said.

"But they want the line to go on. They want children born."

"Yes."

"Is that," said Rachaela, "why your mother beat you?"

"It was why my mother
thought
she beat me."

Rachaela looked into Althene's eyes, carefully.

"I'd rather we didn't get into some situation that you and I both would find—embarrassing."

"I become bashful," said Althene, "very easily."

"To spare me, then."

"So selfish," said Althene.

"I don't sleep with women."

"No. You are a nun. No women, and no men."

"Once. You know the result."

"The little girl who kills."

"Enchanting, adorable Ruth, yes."

"Perhaps the fault wasn't with you, but with the father."

"It doesn't really bother me whose fault it was. It was cause and effect."

"And so you'll be always celibate. How enticing."

"It isn't meant to be, Althene."

"I'm on fire," said Althene. "All I can think of is clambering up the ivory tower and breaking in the window."

Rachaela could feel her heart knocking fast in her throat. It was the brandy. The shock, and the brandy. Or just exhaustion.

"I want to go home," she said.

"Home is where the heart is."

"My heart isn't anywhere."

"So you have said." Althene nodded at the bar, and a girl came at once with a tray, the bill, a tired omnivorous smile.