The Annihilation Score Page 5

  Today there appears to be a human pyramid on the plinth. Or maybe it’s a rugby scrum? Or a public orgy, or a sponsored die-in? I’m not sure, because I’m at the other side of the square and there are a lot of people between me and the plinth. But in any case, there’s what looks like a pile of naked human bodies up there. Here and there, a leg or arm flops limply over the side. Hmm.

  I sit on one of the steps and open the violin case. Pigeons rattle and flap their way across the flagstones; I force myself not to let them distract me, even though they remind me too damn much of the seagulls swirling around the oil rig. At the far side of the square I spot a van with a satellite uplink dish on its roof and an open door, a journalist with cameraman in tow. They seem to be looking up at the plinth. I lift Lecter and his bow out, latch the case closed, and sling it across my shoulder. Standing, violin in hand, I scan for police. There’s always a car or two, or a van, drawn up around the edge. Today I spot three vans and four cars, one with the distinctive markings of an Armed Response vehicle. They’re all parked along the west side of the square. A handful of bobbies in stabbies are dispersed among the crowd, which is no thinner or thicker than I’d expect for a weekday in one of the nation’s most prominent tourist attractions. No sign of anything particularly unusual, though, except—

  “Whoa!” I’m so startled by what I see that I speak aloud. Nobody pays me any attention, though, because everyone else who sees it responds the same way.

  A woman floats into the air in front of the plinth. She’s a yummy-mummy type, modishly dressed, with a matchingly accessorized baby in a buggy the size of a Range Rover. She’s waving her arms and legs like an upside-down beetle, clinging on to the pushchair—which is also airborne—for grim death. I can just about hear her desperate screams for help above the traffic noise and the hum of the crowd as she levitates alongside the four-meter-tall slab of marble. The push-chair tilts sideways and sheds its load: a rain of baby bottles and nappies splatter to the ground. The woman screams again and loses her grip on the buggy. It drops for a moment, then swoops, and kisses the ground in a controlled landing. Its securely strapped-in passenger laughs and claps appreciatively. She, however, is not so lucky: whatever force holds her airborne raises her higher, then slides her over the pile of bodies on the plinth. Then invisible hands start to undress her in mid-air.

  I look around. Police are dotted around the plinth, but they seem reluctant to approach it. I look closer, and see they’re putting down cones and unrolling incident tape. Shit.

  The woman is naked now. Suddenly she stops thrashing, as if paralyzed or stunned. Her invisible assailant floats her slowly over the plinth, then lowers her atop the mound of bodies. Oh shit. I hope she’s not dead. I stand up and start to walk towards the middle of the square. This isn’t a gumshoe job anymore.

  “Sorry, miss, you can’t go there. Turn around and go back. Stop right there!”

  I stop, because there’s not much point trying to walk right through the two-meter-tall slab of London’s finest who has just stepped in front of me. Looking past his shoulder I spot another couple of vans pulling up, cops in riot gear climbing out and forming a line facing outwards around the plinth, like a kettling in reverse.

  I pull out my warrant card and hold it where he can’t ignore it: “Take me to your incident controller.”

  “You can’t—” He goes cross-eyed as the warrant card grabs his undivided attention and digs in.* “Er. You want Detective Chief Inspector Sullivan, boss, she’s over there.” He gestures. “Follow me.”

  * * *

  A big navy blue mobile command center is busily shoe-horning itself into a parking spot just round the corner in Pall Mall, and my guide leads me straight towards it. I’ve got my hands full with my instrument right now, which is a problem: I think I need to call in my own mobile support team. We approach the bus just as a knot of police officers converge on it. A short woman with a no-nonsense attitude is giving them marching orders. I’m about to raise my warrant card when she turns and stares at me and I recognize her. “Oh good,” says Josephine, “is this your mess?”

  “I don’t know, I only just got here.” I shrug, bow and fiddle in either hand. I feel calmer now that I’ve got a professional to work with. “Got a call an hour ago. When did it kick off?”

  “Wait.” She turns to her posse. “Peeps, this is Dr. O’Brien. She works with us: give her what she asks for. Any questions, bring them to me. Now get moving.” If I were the praying kind, I’d think my wishes were answered. Jo Sullivan is one of our direct contacts within the Met; she’s worked with us, on and off, for longer than I’ve been doing field work. In fact, last time I saw her she was working for our Internal Affairs people. I suppose it was inevitable she’d rotate back into the regular force, given the number of paranormal events they must be handling these days. Anyway, if I’d been asked to name the cop I wanted to see in charge of this, she’d be at the top of my list.

  She turns back to me. “Seventy-eight minutes ago, body number one goes flying up to situationist art-show heaven. Male Australian backpacker, mid-twenties, best we can tell. Infrared camera on the chopper says they’re still warm and breathing but they’re not moving and whatever’s doing it likes its bananas peeled.” She glances at her tablet: “We’re up to a count of twelve bodies now, but nobody has any idea who or what is responsible. We sent up the bat-signal for Officer Friendly, but he’s not answering.”

  “Officer Friendly?”

  She raises an eyebrow: “Haven’t met him yet? He’s one of ours: nominally he’s with ACPO, but they’re stretched too thin. Probably still tangled up in paperwork and witness statements from his last big call-out.” Her frustration is palpable: “I don’t want to have to cordon off Trafalgar Square, but if we can’t find the perp—”

  “Well. Let me put my kit down and I’ll see if the office knows anything.” We’re standing next to a van with open doors: I put Lecter and his bow on the front seat while I pull out my phone and dial. “Duty desk? O’Brien here. Can you put me through to whoever thought it was a good idea to send me over to Trafalgar Square without a plan?”

  “Yes, Dr. O’Brien. Transferring you now . . .”

  “Good morning, Mo.” I recognize Gerry Lockhart’s gravelly voice. “What’s going on?”

  I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “We have a major incident going on in Trafalgar Square and you’re asking me? Something is stripping tourists naked and building a pile of bodies on the Fourth Plinth. Paralyzing them, too. The police have no idea and they’re on the edge of—” Sudden shouting distracts me: I hunch my head over to hold my phone against my shoulder and turn to see what’s going on. “Oh fuck it just escalated. Got to go, I’ll call you back.”

  Another body is floating upwards. He’s hanging on to his trademark bicycle by the handlebars, legs pedaling furiously in mid-air. Portly, his suit rumpled and his mass of unkempt hair flopping across his forehead, he is instantly recognizable as the Mayor of London.

  “Oh dear fucking Christ on a crutch,” mouths Josephine, her eyes round with horror. I wince and nod in sympathy. “Get him!” she shouts.

  Cops are already converging on the levitating Mayor like a pack of hounds in pursuit of a fox—the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable. He floats above them, calling for help. One of them jumps high enough to grab the rear wheel of the bike, but dangles for barely a second before it slips from the Mayor’s grip. He lands with a crash and the Mayor floats higher.

  I ring off, then fumble through the phone’s confusing mass of icons until I get into the OFCUT suite—occult sensors and countermeasures, yes, we do indeed have an app for that. I raise the phone, and slowly pan it across the square. The Mayor’s struggles are limned in green, the contours of the thaum field outlined by the phone’s modified camera chip. The bodies atop the plinth also glow . . .

  Aha!

  I tap Josephine’s shoulder to get
her attention. She whirls: “Yes?” she demands.

  “Don’t be too obvious about it,” I say, keeping my voice quiet and conversational, “but our merry prankster appears to be human.” (Which is a huge relief because human problems, however exotic, usually have human solutions. The alternatives are all much, much worse.) “He’s chilling out on the northeast plinth, between the legs of the horse.” His silhouette is lit up like a laser-backlit emerald in my phone’s display, but when I try to look at him with my mark one peepers, they just don’t seem to want to see him—it’s far too easy to focus on the horse’s head or the stone plinth beneath it. “He’s got some kind of invisibility field, but he’s definitely responsible.” Shimmering green contrails link his swooping hands to the body of his current victim.

  “Charming.” She grins savagely. “Let’s lift him—”

  “No.” I slide my phone back into my jacket pocket, then collect Lecter from the van. “We have no idea of his full capabilities. So far he’s given us telekinesis, paralysis, and observation-avoidance. That’s quite a hat trick, isn’t it? But we don’t know it’s all he’s capable of. And there are his victims to consider.” Her smile vanishes. “If we take him down, does the paralysis suddenly wear off? If so, they’re lying naked on top of a four-meter-high platform above flagstones. Someone is going to fall and break something if they start moving.”

  “Damn. And there’s the motivation issue to consider.”

  “Yes.” I pause. “Do you have any ideas?”

  Above the plinth, the Mayor of London is twirling around his long axis like a plucked chicken on a rotisserie. His coat has taken flight and is flapping around the top of Nelson’s Column like a demented raven; his shoes pop off like champagne corks as our prankster prepares to debag the old Etonian. Beneath him, that damned TV camera is presumably getting the lead item for tonight’s news channels.

  “Public safety comes first. I need to get a couple of squads ready to rush in air bags,” Josephine decides. “Then someone to disable him, on my word.” She takes a deep breath, then her eyes flicker towards the Mayor: “I don’t want to authorize lethal force, but I may have to, if he escalates further. All of that’s going to take time and I’d rather not go there. Can you distract him, at least? Or immobilize him?”

  I look around the square. It’s actually busier, if anything, except for the area immediately around the plinth that the police have got cordoned off. “I can distract him and I can probably disable him.” Unlike Jo I don’t need to go up a level to authorize force: I answer to my oath, my conscience, and the Auditors. “Give me a minute to report in, then I’ll go and make a song and dance under his nose. If he gives me grief, I’ll take him down; you could help by having some bodies standing by to bag him. Starting in, uh”—I check my watch—“five minutes?”

  “You’ve got three. If we don’t nail him fast, someone’s going to get hurt.” She heads for the steps of the mobile incident room.

  * * *

  I walk across the crowded plaza, gaze downcast to avoid eye contact with the people I’m using for cover. Anything to keep from standing out until I’m in position. The police are clearing the northwest corner of the square by forming a line, elbow to elbow, and expanding it: Josephine’s obviously told them to keep it low-key and friendly because there’s a marked lack of jostling and riot shields. They are having to work at it, though, because if there is one thing guaranteed to attract the attention of tourists and locals alike, it’s the sight of a levitating semi-naked Mayor. The square is stippled with the diamante glitter of camera fill-in flashes.

  I have to shimmy to avoid the elbows and backpacks of oblivious non-natives stopping dead to peer at their tourist guides. My line of sight on George the Fourth is tenuous, and in any case I can’t be too obvious about keeping an eye on him and remain invisible. Rather than heading directly towards the joker, I stroll in a wide curve around the outside of the square, violin at my shoulder and bow poised. Finally I find a reasonable pitch. It’s nothing special, just a patch of flagstones beside a low wall that isn’t already occupied by a tour group or another musical hopeful. But it’s about fifty meters away from Georgie and his unseen passenger, and I’ve got a sight-line on the police around the Fourth Plinth and, past them, the mobile incident command vehicle.

  I unsling the empty violin case and lay it open at my feet, just like every other busker. Then I flex my fingers.

  Lecter is sleepy and reluctant to rise to full awareness. Good. While he’s in this state he’s little more than a regular instrument. I check the pickups and switch off the small pre-amp built into his lower bout.

  ***What are you doing?***

  I ignore him and start to tune up. The strings are just about right: the damp sea air didn’t have a chance to affect them. Excellent. I check my watch: it’s time. I launch into the Ciaccona from Bach’s Partita in D minor because I can do it in my sleep while reserving 90 percent of my attention for keeping track of developments and, more importantly, Lecter is used to me using it as a basic exercise rather than the prelude to an attack.

  ***What are you doing?*** he whines. I let him see the statue through my eyes, complete with the disturbing blind spot between the front legs of the horse. ***Ah.***

  I turn slowly to gaze in the direction of the plinth. The Mayor twirls slowly, stripped back to a pair of polka-dotted navy boxers. As I watch, they begin to slide south. He grabs them: for a moment he keeps his grip, but then the fabric rips and they fly away. “Oh my,” I mouth, nearly losing my fingering. The spangle and flicker of camera flashes rises to a manic intensity: I know exactly what’s going to be on the front page of all the newspapers tomorrow. Then I turn back towards my target.

  “Lend me your vision,” I instruct Lecter as I stare across the bridge of my instrument. My vision grays out for a moment and then returns. Some colors are emphasized: there’s a strange lambency to the air between the horse’s hooves, and it slowly resolves into the shape of a seated human figure.

  ***Can I eat him?***

  “No,” I convey through the tension of my fingertips. “Mine, not yours.”

  ***Hungry!***

  “Nevertheless.” I tighten my grip and draw on the violin’s power. Bach, I decide, is inappropriate. This calls for something more contemporary. I segue into a different form, a more rhythmic, sinister melody wrapped around an implicit beat: “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” for solo improv violin values of mortality. “Now . . .”

  I relax my grip on Lecter’s appetite and he strains forward eagerly, sucking on the energy source in front of him. The blind spot twists and twitches slightly, then begins to shrink. Arms and legs slide into view. Hands move, agitated: Laughing Boy has finally begun to realize that something is wrong.

  Out of the corner of my eye I spot the Mayor standing on top of the pile of naked bodies on the other plinth; he’s waving and gesticulating in my direction. Is he a sensitive? Shit. There’s nothing to be done about it if he is: I press on. Raising the bow for a second I flip the switch on my violin’s pre-amp. It’s not an audio amplifier, and those aren’t electronic pickups. I started subtle, but now it’s time to party. The bats have left the belfry—

  —And I’m almost airborne. Whoops. My ward buzzes angrily and I hastily squirt juice into it, juice sucked from the joker on the plinth who has taken aim at me. I land with a painful jolt but manage to absorb the drop with my knees. I’ll feel them tomorrow but I’m rooted to the ground for now. I increase both volume and tempo, whirling into a screaming blur as the song rises: the strings begin to glow and now I reach out with Lecter’s power and wrap my will around my target. The victims have been bled—

  Got you.

  He struggles as I lift him into the air, stabbing at me with pulses of near-solid air that would rupture eardrums and break bones if I didn’t have a ward in place, drawing on the near-infinite depths of the violin’s power. I stare at him as he scr
eams obscenities and lashes out at me: for a moment I wonder if I’ve caught a giant frog. Then I realize he’s just a little overweight—beer guts and Lycra body stockings really don’t play well together.

  “Put me down you motherfucking hippie bitch! Put me down or I will rape you so hard you’ll walk bow-legged for a month!”

  I tighten my grip on him and he shuts up, unable to draw breath. I see red: heart pounding and head throbbing in time to the beat I’m imagining. Laughing Boy likes to strip the clothes off young women in public as he adds them to the pornographic sculpture he’s building on the empty plinth? Laughing Boy thinks rape jokes are funny? Laughing Boy thinks it’s all fun and games until a motherfucking hippie bitch turns his own mojo back on him, does he? I’ll show him, I’ll squeeze him until his guts explode—

  “Stop that,” I tell Lecter. Laughing Boy is turning blue in the face, eyes bulging as I dangle him above the heads of the crowd. Almost like the bodies on the giant gallows in Vakilabad—

  I let him down gently, in the middle of a knot of riot police, then stop the music dead and lower my instrument. “Oh God oh God oh God,” I mumble. The residual power surge warms the protective ward at the base of my throat. I feel sick. I nearly hanged a man with a noose of air. But he threatened to that’s disproportionate rape you he’s just a sad middle-aged man with no life who has suddenly acquired superpowers and then decided to have some fun and sexually abuse random passers-by in public and I believe we should have a little word with Jo Sullivan, and stop arguing with yourself, yes?