Poison City (40 page)

The walls burp out some kind of black oil. The oil forms into a huge creature about the size of the Hulk, and it grabs the man before he moves two steps. He struggles, but the more he moves, the more he sinks back into the creature, until only his face is showing, the black oil crawling across his skin.

Anansi puts his cue down on the table.

‘You want to see your sister so much? Then you will join her, yes? A family reunion.’

He gestures and the creature steps back into the wall, pulling the struggling man with it. He’s gone in an instant. A moment of silence, then the club-goers who stopped to watch carry on with their conversations.

Anansi glances at us without much interest.

‘Who are you?’

I flash my ID. ‘Delphic Division.’

‘We’d like to know where Mother Durban is,’ says Armitage.

He focuses on us with renewed interest. ‘Why would you want to know where my fiancée is?’

‘She’s not your fiancée yet,’ I say. ‘Last we heard her people hadn’t got back to you.’

‘She’s playing hard to get, that’s all. She’ll come around, yes?’

‘Spoken like a true misogynist,’ mutters Armitage.

Anansi grins at her. ‘You are one of them, then?’

‘One of them?’ says Armitage, steel in her voice.

‘A feminist.’

Armitage glowers and takes a step forward.

‘Armitage,’ I say.

She glances at me, purses her lips, and nods. She steps back again to stand next to me, but her glare doesn’t go anywhere, and it’s directed straight at Anansi.

‘Do you know where she is?’ I ask.

‘I might.’

I sigh. ‘Anansi, we have a whole filing cabinet devoted to you back at the Division. We know about your trafficking. We know about you using the taxi industry to funnel funds. We also know you use the taxis to transport stolen goods. If you don’t want us to drop everything we’re working on and focus all our attention on you, tell us where she is.’

He winks at me. ‘If that is what you know about me, then you know nothing.’

‘That’s just the first file in the first drawer,’ I say. ‘Like I said, we’ve been watching you for a long time.’

His smile disappears. He stares at me, trying to see if I’m telling the truth. ‘Why do you want her?’

‘Have you seen what’s going on outside?’

He shrugs. ‘A few fires. A few riots. What is it to me?’

‘It’s not just a few fires. It’s Lilith, starting a war between orisha and mankind. What do you think will happen to your precious little crime syndicate if that happens?’

‘And think how grateful Mother Durban will be if she finds out you helped save her city,’ says Armitage.

Nice one. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

‘Because as it stands,’ continues Armitage, ‘Durban is going to be doing a pretty good impression of Hell come morning.’

Armitage’s phone rings. She answers, it, turns away to talk.

Anansi sighs, checks his watch. ‘This time of night she’ll be at the Playhouse.’

‘The Playhouse? Doing what?’

He frowns. ‘What do you normally do at the theatre? She’ll be watching her play.’

Armitage leans close to me. ‘We need to go,’ she whispers. ‘That was Eshu. He thinks someone’s piggy-backed his comms.’

‘SSA?’

Armitage nods. ‘He reckons so. They know we came here.’

Chapter 21

The sins of God leech into the collective psyche of the city. Forgotten dreams bubble to the surface. Old wounds open afresh, boiling with pus and resentment.

A man remembers when his brother stole his girlfriend, thirty-two years ago. He gets a kitchen knife, travels to the other side of the city, and drives it into his sibling’s heart, screaming about lost love and what might have been.

A nun who teaches at the Our Lady of Fatima Dominican Convent School runs naked through the streets, screaming that she’s in love with a woman who used to live next door to her.

An anorexic teen eats her family. She keeps going until her stomach lining ruptures and she dies from internal bleeding.

A television presenter who gained exactly 0.4 of a kilogram in the previous month goes on a rampage at the local television studio, locking his co-presenters in the editing suite and setting fire to the building. He then proceeds to cut the fat from his body with a blunt knife, weighing himself after every cut, muttering about it not being enough. It’s never enough.

A failed businessman steals his neighbour’s jeep and rams it into the closest ATM. When he still can’t get the money out he shoots himself in the head.

The Playhouse, Durban’s oldest theatre, is only about ten blocks over from the Rift.

It’s an unassuming, old-fashioned building, fronted by a small portico supported by columns plastered with posters for upcoming plays and ballets.

The street is eerily quiet compared to the rest of Durban. No gangs here. No screeching cars. No fires. The street is deserted, quiet.

Calm.

Has to be Mother Durban’s doing.

I try the front doors. Locked. I consider using my gun to shoot out the glass, but something makes me pause. There’s an air of respect here. Doing something like shooting the doors to gain entrance seems . . . sacrilegious.

‘There’s another entrance round the side,’ says Armitage.

We head down a dirty, cobbled alley. Apartment blocks tower up to either side. Washing lines straddle the air above the alley, strung up between cracked and broken windows.

The side entrance to the Playhouse is an ornate door at the top of five steps. Armitage is ahead of me. She pushes it open and we enter a narrow hall. The lights are on. The walls are lined with posters advertising
The Nutcracker
,
Aladdin
,
Swan Lake
.

The passage leads into a wide atrium, an area where people can wait for the plays to begin. Leather couches, cramped tables and chairs. A long bar to the left.

There are three different stages in the playhouse: the Loft, the Opera Theatre and the Drama Theatre. We climb the set of stairs that leads to the Opera Theatre, picking this one because it’s the biggest stage and the most likely place we’d find Mother Durban.

We move along the rotunda that leads to the theatre itself. Concealed lights cast a warm glow across the red carpets. I can hear sounds as we approach a door. Loud voices, drums, heavy echoes.

I hesitate, wondering if we should be doing this. I feel like we’re interrupting something private. Like we’re stepping into a church during a stranger’s funeral.

‘Ah . . . I’ll wait here,’ says the dog. ‘Don’t think I’d be welcome inside.’

I nod and gently push the door open. Armitage and I step inside.

The theatre is huge. We’ve entered right at the back, and a thousand seats spread out below us, a semicircle of high-backed chairs leading downwards. Painted Elizabethan buildings flank the brightly lit stage. A starry sky twinkles above actors performing to an entirely empty house.

‘There,’ whispers Armitage, pointing.

Ah. Not entirely empty. There’s someone seated in the front row, a shadowy figure with head craned back, watching the play unfold with rapt attention.

We make our way down the sloped floor, heading towards the figure. My eyes are drawn to the play as we do so. The actors are running around, clashing in groups while red and orange ribbon, blown by wind machines, sway across the stage.

I suddenly realise I’m watching a play about what’s happening in Durban right at this moment. The riots engulfing the city, the fires burning through the streets.

As we draw closer I see that the figure watching the play is an African woman. But then I blink and she’s suddenly Indian. Then a white housewife. Then a small black kid. Another blink and she looks like a Dutch settler, sitting in old-fashioned clothes. And then she’s an elderly Zulu tribeswoman, laughing with delight and clapping.

I suppose it makes sense. Mother Durban is made up of the entire history of the city. The souls and memories of all its inhabitants reside in her.

The face that finally turns to look at us is that of a smooth-skinned African woman. She looks like she’s about twenty-five. Her mouth is turned down, a crease in her brows showing her annoyance.

‘You are interrupting my show,’ she says.

I glance at the stage. In the time it’s taken for her to acknowledge our presence, the sets and actors have changed. Now there are two people and a dog approaching a painted facade of the Playhouse itself.

I realise with a jolt that the actors are supposed to represent us. I watch as they enter the building. The lights fade to darkness. A moment later they come on again to reveal the actors and Mother Durban’s double, standing against a painted backdrop of the stage itself.

The three actors turn to look at us.

‘The story is waiting,’ says Mother Durban, and the words come simultaneously from her and the woman on the stage. ‘What will you write?’

‘We . . . want to track someone,’ I say. ‘The person responsible for what’s happening right now.’

‘You mean Lilith?’

Armitage and I exchange looks.

‘Yes. Can you tell us where she is?’ I ask.

‘I can.’

I wait. But Mother Durban says nothing. Instead she feels around in her seat and pulls out a box of Smarties. She pops the lid and tips the contents of the box into her mouth, staring at me expectantly.

‘Well . . . 
will
you?’ I ask.

‘Perhaps. What can you offer me in return?’

I stare at her in amazement. ‘We’re trying to save your city. We’re trying to stop the Night from taking over.’ A horrible thought occurs to me. ‘Unless . . . unless you want the Night to win?’

‘No. I do not want that. I’m quite happy with my city as it is.’

‘Then tell us.’

‘If you pay. Nothing is free, Mr London.’

‘Jesus Christ. Fine. What’s the price?’

‘The price is always the same. That which is most valuable to you.’

She gestures at the stage. I glance across, only half-interested. But something in the layout of the set makes my head snap around.

It’s an exact replica of Timothy Evan’s house.

I look at Mother Durban uncertainly, but she smiles benignly and gestures back to the stage.

An actor enters the room from the wings and someone who had been sitting on the floor surges to his feet and grabs him.

There follows an exact re-enactment of what happened earlier that evening. I can feel Armitage’s focus shifting between the play and myself. When Evans tells me my daughter is still alive, she reaches out and takes my hand, squeezing it tightly.

When the play reaches the point where Evans tells me the name of the fae who took Cally, Mother Durban raises her hand in the air.

The play stops abruptly, as if a pause button has been pushed on a DVD. Mother Durban turns to me.

‘That is the price you must pay for the knowledge you seek.’

I blink, unsure what she’s talking about. I look back to the frozen tableau, see the actor representing me staring at Evans with disbelief and hope clear on his features.

‘I don’t . . .’

‘Oh, London,’ whispers Armitage. ‘I’m so sorry, pet.’

I turn to her. ‘What?’

‘Not too sharp, is he, honey?’ Mother Durban gets up and comes to stand before me. Except now she’s a little Indian girl, about ten years old. She gestures me closer.

I crouch down and she puts a hand to my ear, leaning in to whisper. ‘The price is always the same, no matter who asks. I want that which is most valuable to you. In your case, the memory of who took your daughter.’

I lean back, stare at her in shock. ‘No.’ I shake my head, straighten up. ‘No. You can’t.’

She shrugs and goes back to her seat. ‘Your choice.’

‘You can’t . . .’ I turn to Armitage. ‘She can’t.’ Back again to face Mother Durban. ‘Three years!’ I shout. ‘Three years I’ve thought my daughter was dead! I’ve only just found out she’s alive! Found out who did it! And you want me to just . . . forget that? Give it away?’

‘Your choice,’ repeats Mother Durban. She gestures at the stage.

I turn and see that the sets have been cleared, leaving behind empty boards. ‘But you must decide soon. The play has not ended this night.’

I take a step forward, yank my gun out. Hold it in a trembling hand. ‘Just tell me. Tell me where Lilith is!’

‘London, don’t,’ warns Armitage. I feel her hand on my shoulder. I shrug it off. I’m trembling with fury. With fear.

‘Tell. Me.’

Mother Durban looks at me calmly. She reaches up and curls her fingers around the barrel, moving it to her temple ‘Best to make sure,’ she says softly.

I put my finger on the trigger. Can feel it easing slowly inward.

‘Gideon,’ says Armitage quietly. ‘Come on, love. Don’t be a silly bugger.’