Schiller drives feverishly, paying little attention to speed limits as he thunders towards the imagined safety of the city. Within the M25 he will be harder to see, he intuits, one more cell of human consciousness within the teeming swirling dreams of the human superorganism slowly waking towards an apprehension of its own ultimate power—but here in the countryside, laid out on these strips of tarmac illuminated by the amber and unblinking gaze of streetlights, he’s vulnerable to the predator that awakened and came to sniff around the edges of his ritual.
An hour passes, minutes trickling away like the rough-edged grains of crematory remains. The satnav—he can’t remember having programmed it; he must have done so during the blackout when he felt Anneka die—directs him dispassionately, routing him around roadworks and blockages, and through the congestion charge zone where traffic consists almost entirely of buses, taxis, and delivery vehicles. London is a knotty rat’s nest of streets but Schiller pays no attention, his mind fixed on the guide star of a higher calling as his hands manipulate the steering wheel and controls. Finally he turns the big car onto a narrow street and his robot guide recites, “Turn left in twenty yards and you have reached your destination.”
“Praise God,” Schiller says fervently. The car park entrance looms, and he noses into it. Stops the car in the first empty space—a disabled slot, but he’ll be gone before any fine can trouble him—and runs, gasping and clutching his chest, for the elevator entrance.
As the lift elevates him silently into the building, he glances down and sees that a fine mist of blood drops have soiled the gleaming tips of his shoes. Schiller shudders convulsively. Passport, papers, Anneka’s briefcase and secure laptop—he remembers where she left them. One bag, that’s all. He can be packed and gone in minutes, almost as if he were never here. His host twitches uneasily, squeezing uncomfortably at the crotch of his trousers. It hasn’t fed recently; blood alone isn’t enough, and if his men left the new girl here—
He’s in the lobby of the apartment, shaking his head as the burglar alarm beeps. Punching numbers in, his hand shakes so much that he gets it wrong the first time and the beeping escalates angrily while he makes a second attempt. He double-locks the door, leans against the wall, and gasps for breath past the tightness in his chest. “Slow down or you’ll die,” he tells himself, then gasps some more. Finally he closes his eyes, and tries to recall the words to one of the prayers his Lord showed him. Peace of mind gradually steals over him as he hums the oddly alien phonemes. Yes, this is what he should do, he realizes. Leave the new missionary sister behind to work God’s will on this dark island. Take the remaining host from the fridge, and the briefcase and the bible and the gun, and go to Stansted. Fly after the setting moon, to the mountains and hills of Colorado, and pray on his knees for forgiveness—
Briefcase. It’s on the table. He opens it, trudges to the kitchen, and finds the Mason jar where he left it. The host within senses him and stretches languorously, comforted by proximity. And Ray realizes he can still hear it in his soul, thrumming contentedly: he’s not alone. The caster of the shadow was a liar and his Lord is not dead. Smiling, he carries the jar back into the living room and places it inside Anneka’s bag.
The bloody droplets on his evening shoes seem to mock him when he glances at the carpet.
Ray feels a stab of petulant resentment. Cometh the hour, cometh the man: but what if the hour cometh and the man is unavoidably detained? What if the man is detained indefinitely while the supplicant, the faithful worshipper, ekes out his life alone on an insignificant island where no gods tread? Or worse, where only the wrong gods move among the mortals? Disgusted, he walks towards the bedroom. He needs to get himself under control. Take care of business. Seal the deal. Live the dream.
He opens the bedroom door and turns on the light.
There’s a woman on the bed, lying on her side, facing the doorway. She’s an ice-blonde, perfect in every way but for her hair, which is cut in a flapper bob—ungodly, in his opinion, but hair can be grown out—and she wears a red silk minidress so short that her stocking tops are visible. Her wrists are cuffed and chained to her ankles behind her back. The guards gagged her, which annoys him (don’t they know she could choke, unattended?) but she’s awake now, staring at him with wide blue eyes.
Schiller smiles shyly as he sheds his tuxedo jacket. “Don’t be afraid,” he reassures her as he bends down to unlace his shoes. He unzips his trousers and lets them drop. “I’m not going to hurt you.” His host flexes lazily, questing towards the future handmaid. She rolls away from him, over onto her back, muffled sounds coming from behind the leather ball gag. “I’m going to show you something wonderful; it’ll bring you closer to the Lord.” He steps out of his trousers and pushes down his boxers. “Do you pray?” Almost shyly, “Would you like to pray with me?”
The girl sits up, and the chains fall away from her as she spits out the ball gag that concealed her teeth. “Yeth, but I spell it differently,” she says, lisping breathily as she leans towards him.
Schiller’s eyes widen and he starts to retreat, but he’s too late.
Mhari climbs across the bed, wraps uncannily strong arms around him, and leans her head against the cleft between his neck and his collar bone. “I don’t pray: you’re my prey. Mine, motherfucker!”
And then she begins to feed.
TWELVE
EPILOGUE: THE QUISLING BREED
It’s after midnight and the party’s already over when I climb down the ladder from India 97’s cabin, flinching slightly at the rotors whirling overhead, and walk across the field towards the garden and the floodlit mansion beyond.
The SA’s waiting for me beside the open back gate to the paddock. He looks old, and gray, and so very tired.
“What,” I ask, “the fuck”—voice rising—“have you done?”
“Walk with me.”
He turns without waiting and walks through the gate, then along a narrow gravel path between flower beds. I swear some more, then follow him.
“Is she all right?” I call ahead.
He doesn’t answer, and for a moment it feels as if my head’s about to explode. I had her on speed dial and kept trying during the flight but the call went straight to voicemail every time.
He bears right, towards a row of smaller buildings—cottages? stables?—around the side of the house, then casts around as if looking for something. Then he steps onto the lawn, walks halfway towards the yard full of parked cars behind the buildings, and stops.
“It happened here,” he says.
“What happened?”
“She should be dead.” He swallows. In the sharp glare of the floodlights I see the shadow of his Adam’s apple move. “According to Forecasting Ops—”
“Fuck Forecasting Ops, is she all right?”
He cracks. “Maybe. Probably. Not sure.”