After he has fed, Herlut sleeps. And this is a good time, a time we can relax. Ixbal and I take the opportunity to scrub the creature down, as almost nothing wakes him up when he is full. We fill buckets with hot water, bubbles created by the green slippery stuff that the Fairy puts in those squeezy bottles – I think it must be some kind of bile, but it foams up beautifully and leaves his hide squeaky clean. We scrape down his mottled scales, cleaning out the parasites which grow and gnaw between the gigantic armoured plates – there’s good eating on one of those, and afterwards when we’ve worked up an appetite, we throw them into a wok with some Uncle Ben’s cook-in sauce. We check the flat for speeders – they’ve infested the whole castle, and Herlut cannot abide having them near him. And if we have managed to find a real virgin – an event which grows rarer with each passing month – then we tidy up her things and figure out if there is anything worth selling. If we have used legs of lamb, we sweep up the plastic packets and rescue the wig to use it again next time.
Please do not expect me to be able to explain why Herlut can tell a non-virgin at 50 paces, but can be fooled by some legs of lamb taped together with a blonde wig perched jauntily on top. Our lord and master is a creature of mystery. And although he is sleeping, and the world is not swallowed whole, there is still no guarantee that the ruse has worked. Other things happen when Herlut goes hungry.
When we were done, Ixbal switched the TV on and settled down in front of
Cash In The Attic with his special dusters and polish to shine up his axe collection until he could see his livid red cheeks in every blade. I watched him staring darkly at the face I’ve known and hated for so long. That broken nose, the dark eyes glaring from under knitted bear-like brows, the yellow-toothed snarl of a warrior in the prime of his life. Unlike me, Ixbal cannot accept that who he is cannot be seen outside. Back where we belong, those who see Ixbal run in terror (especially those of us who actually know him) but here, they speak to him in a loud, gentle voice and offer to make him a cup of tea. Watching him, lovingly running a J-cloth over his favourite carved steel pike, crooning to it as you would to a baby, made me homesick myself.
I clambered up the swirly-patterned wall, looking for my favourite perch just inside the air-vent by the ceiling, intending to follow Herlut’s example and catch some sleep too, but then I remembered the rabbit.
You know what it’s like. You’re trying to get on with something and then you remember there’s a chocolate bar in the fridge, and all you can think about is going to get that chocolate. Well, that’s how I felt about the rabbit. Every time I closed my eyes and tried to rest, I thought about those soft ears, that plump juicy body and that luxurious fluffy tail which would make me a perfect pillow.
“I’m popping to the corner shop,” I announced nonchalantly. “Would you like some cigarettes?”
Ixbal shook his head without even looking up. “Not hungry.”
He didn’t see me lift the dagger carefully and drag it to the front door. When I was over the threshold, and boy-shape again, I tucked it into my sock. There are things about this shape that I like – I miss the tiny poison hairs which grow all over my real body, and I miss being able to skitter up walls and squeeze myself through gaps the size of a pencil. And clothes. I hate clothes – they feel like shackles. But I like being warm-blooded and feeling the chill steel of the knife against my ankle.
The sun feels different against my skin, too. As I walked down the stairs, the light pushed through the murk of clouds and shone through the grimy safety windows. Warmth spread over my face, and for a moment I closed my eyes and gloried in the sensation, letting my hand grip the smooth plastic stair-rail. I worked a little of the dirt loose with a fingernail and popped it experimentally onto my tongue. It tasted strong and mysterious, but not good. Still, this was freedom. I was away from Ixbal, Herlut was sleeping, and prey was ahead of me. Keeping my eyes shut, I concentrated on blocking out the symphony of odours that crashed around me, and tried to isolate the hot-blooded, grassy, earthy smell of Simon. I wanted to find him quickly before Ixbal cottoned on to what I was doing, but I wanted the pleasure of the hunt, too. I wanted to feel the rabbit’s fear, his little body trembling under my hands. That, more than the sun, reminds me of the place where we belong.
I couldn’t single out the smell because there was a bigger blood-smell drifting up the stairwell. The familiar dread rose in my stomach, and my little boy legs quivered like reeds as I forced myself down the steps. There it was, a piece of tape tied half-heartedly to the stair-rail, blocking my way down to the fourth floor:
POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS. I ducked under it, and saw a uniformed guard, chattering into her radio, trying not to look at the floor next to her. A sticky pool of russet-brown: rapidly drying blood. Ground into the stain were the tattered remains of a black leather jerkin, soaked and stiffening. All that was left. I should go back and tell Ixbal, not that there was anything we could do about it.
“Oh my God,” a voice, quiet at my side. I looked up and saw the non-virgin in the pink cowl. She was clutching a pink bag, and her fingers were twisting at the plastic strap, tighter and tighter – the tips had turned purple and blue, but she didn’t seem to notice, her eyes were fixed on the stain. “Do you know what happened?”
“His name was Nguyen,” I said, without thinking. I tried to ignore the things which flickered in my head – the boat, clinging to his frozen child next to him, coming ashore to forms and queues and detention centres. And then this.
“Oh my God,” she said again. “Did you know him? Was he, was he a friend of yours, Scratch?”
“I never heard of him before today.”
