City of Shadows Page 10

  The phone then blared with an alarm that sounded like something from the emergency alert system, in case of nuclear bombs. Pearson tapped his phone a few more moments, and his eyes widened.

  “So, do you think anyone will know you’re the source of a race riot?”

  14

  Through the Fire and Flames

  “What riot?” I asked.

  Pearson turned the phone around and showed me the screen. The main page of BBC News was a video of riots and blood in the street. Molotov cocktails, rocks, and bricks flew into windows, statues, buildings, and beatings in the street.

  Underneath the video stream read a crawl, reading “IMAM KOZBAR CALLS FOR SLEEPLESS NIGHT FOR LONDON,” followed by “RACE RIOT THROUGHOUT LONDON,” and ended in “KOZBAR CITES RACISM, ABUSE, AS CAUSE OF UNREST.”

  I rolled my eyes. Ask a guy some questions, defend yourself against some of his parishioners, you’re an abusive racist. Yay. If I wanted this sort of BS, I’d’ve stayed in New York.

  I handed the phone back to Pearson. “Great. Just great. You’d think that the weather would suppress rioting at least a little.”

  Pearson turned the phone screen back to me. He said nothing for a moment. It took me that long to notice that the rain on the rioters was not the rain on the roof. Whoever had been controlling the weather had enough practice to wield it on individual groups.

  Okay, this might be problematic. “What about the path between here and Trafalgar Square?”

  Pearson frowned. I could almost hear him working out the path, discounting the underground because of flooding, and discounting cars because he wouldn’t want to run over the rioters in our way.

  “It’s only a little over a half a mile,” Pearson finally said. “Normally, it’s a twelve- or fifteen-minute walk.”

  “But there’s rioting.”

  Pearson nodded. “But there’s rioting.”

  “Has anyone mapped the rioting?”

  Pearson flipped through his phone for another minute. He nodded. “The closer you get to Trafalgar, the worse it’s going to get. I’m not all that surprised. I have no idea how much of this has been planned, or how much the Soul Stone itself is prompting people into mass destruction.”

  I nodded and stood. “Time to get wet again.”

  Pearson frowned. “Pardon me, but we should probably get a poncho first. I’m certain they should have a few somewhere.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  Within fifteen minutes, we were back out on the street in bright yellow ponchos.

  Surprisingly, it didn’t take us long to get through the rioting. The rioters weren’t interested in people so much as they were in property damage and shopping with a brick. Neither Pearson nor I were interested in trying to hold back the tide against property. While I felt for those people who had their possessions damaged or their businesses burned, there was also the slightest bit of schadenfreude on my part. Honestly, it was less that I enjoyed the suffering of others, and more that I enjoyed the irony of a people who had sacrificed their rights to bear weapons of any type, be it a handgun or a kitchen knife, to having their lives turned upside down by people who didn’t care about their laws.

  And yes, I do recognize the problem in that statement. I live in New York, which is trying to do the same thing. The moment anyone told me to do house-to-house gun confiscation would be the day I set up an underground armed resistance.

  On the way to Trafalgar Square, though, Pearson and I had a few incidents.

  When a small wave of shadows came for us, I snatched the Molotov cocktail from the hand of a rioter and threw it in front of them. The shadows reared back and made a sound like a cross between nails on a blackboard and hoard of dying farm animals being brutally slaughtered.

  I spun back towards the rioter and punched him in the face before he could shank me.

  I whirled back to the path. I started praying and ran.

  The light of God surrounds us, The love of God enfolds us—

  We ran. We saw a group of girls beset by rioters. The men grabbed at their clothes, then at their arms. Two girls had been peeled off already and thrown to the ground. Each girl had at least four men stripping her.

  The power of God protects us, The presence of God watches over us—

  I didn’t even need to ask God for help. I bi-located immediately. It was less of a bi- and more of a sex-located. All five of my duplicates piled into the rioters while the one running alongside Pearson kept going. I stole knives from them and slashed their thigh muscles, rammed knife points into kneecaps, and slit throats. One of me even stole a bottle of acid from a rioter and poured it in his eyes, then flung the bottle like I was dispensing holy water in the asperges ritual on the congregation during mass. It resulted in little more than a sprinkling, but it got their attention. Then all of me drew the gun stolen from earlier and opened fire. The rioters fled one way, the girls another.

  It was over in seconds.

  Wherever we are, God is, And where God is, all is well.

  But then I heard cries for help coming from different directions. All around, the rioters had encountered other citizens and started the next phase of the attack—people.

  St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, St. John, Like unto the prophet Jonas, as a type of Christ—

  Then, I—we—split up.

  I went East, gun drawn. A gathering of homeless were being beaten by the rioters. I opened fire, driving them off. I gave their victims directions to Saint Patrick’s Catholic church. They took the information and ran. The rioters came back with friends. I fended them off until my gun ran dry. They didn’t even let me get close enough to go melee before throwing six Molotov cocktails at me at once. I went up in a blaze, consumed in fire as I burned alive. I even felt the burning gasoline down my throat as it consumed me inside and out.

  Who was guarded for three days and three nights in the belly of a whale—

  I went West, gun drawn. Three rioters held a father of two down on the sidewalk as his children watched them tease him with dripping acid on the ground around him. I dropped to one knee, took careful aim, and fired at the one with the acid. I blew his brains out, causing him to tilt into one of his friends, spilling acid over his buddy. I targeted the unwounded one and shot him. The father struggled to his feet when shadows reached up from the street and grabbed him. It took him by the ankles and dragged him across the sidewalk, pulling him into an alley. I ran faster, jumped over the father, and stomped on the tendrils of shadow. It speared me through the sides, the palms of both hands, and through both feet before wrapping around my torso, wrists, and ankles before it dragged me into the darkness. There was much wailing (mine) and gnawing of teeth (not mine) as the shadow tore into my bi-located form. I felt every moment of it. I waited until the family had gotten away before that form faded away.

  Thus shall the Almighty God, As a Father, guard and protect me from all evil.

  I went north, back the way we came. The riot had expanded in behind us. One gang had broken through a door and threw the owners into the street so they could be beaten. I opened fire with my stolen handgun, emptying it into the crowd. The shock and the dead bodies pushed back the crowd from a family. They got up and ran past me. I held the gun up as though I still had bullets in it and held the riot back. This lasted a whole thirty seconds before they started throwing bricks at me. I figured as long as they kept up the brick throwing, they weren’t chasing after other people… then a brick clipped me in the head. I went down and faded away.

  Grant, O Lord, Thy protection And in protection, strength—

  Another one of me also went north. I collected a series of homeless out on the street and herded them back towards the church, which was hopefully still out of the riot zone. I even collected the families I saved during the other encounters. I led point, shooting at any rioters in our way. When someone’s head exploded from the impact of a bullet, the other rioters scattered like bullets were contagious. I led them to the edge of the riot zone when
one of the shadows tripped me and dragged me off. The last coherent words past those lips were “RUN!” I didn’t fade away this time. I stayed until my head was crushed by jagged shadowy teeth.

  I also brought up the rear of the refugees from the rioters. The rioters were following. After the me leading the front of the crowd had been snagged by darkness, I stopped and turned to face the rioters. I dropped to one knee and shot one of the mob leaders. He went down, trampled, and I held my fire for five seconds, long enough for people in the mob to realize they were tripping over one of their own—and that he’d been shot. They broke up, spreading out in an arc around me. You can imagine how long it takes for a mob to do that. One of them tried to pass me on the right, edging along the buildings. I swung towards him and shot him. I swung back to the main body and said, “Who’s next?” It took them five minutes to test me, wear out my ammunition, then close on me. At the end of the night, that form of mine was beaten to death with cricket bats.

  And in strength, understanding. And in understanding, knowledg—

  By the time Pearson and I made it to Trafalgar Square, all of my bi-located forms were killed off and faded away.

  Unfortunately, the rest of the riot had centered at the square. Cars were overturned and on fire, forming a barricade. One of the double-decker buses was also aflame.

  And in knowledge, the knowledge of justice. And in the knowledge of justice, the love of it—

  Most importantly, someone was climbing down from the Admiral Nelson statue at the top of Trafalgar Square. And he had the Soul Stone.

  And in the love of it, the love of all existences. And in that love, the love of spirit and all creation. Amen.

  15

  Raiders

  The wind picked up again once the man with the Soul Stone had hit the ground. The rioters broke up, moving out of the way of the Soul Stone and its carrier.

  I wondered exactly just how much the stone was influencing the mob.

  We ran for the Soul Stone, but the lightning flashed again, snapping just in front of us. We came up short before another lightning strike hit the exact same place.

  That doesn’t happen naturally, I thought. I reached out and grabbed Pearson by the collar and pulled him back. I looked up, scanning the rooftops for the weather-controlling Jihadi.

  I spotted him on top of the national gallery. He looked like a bearded marshmallow man. His evil laughter cackled over the night sky. I took aim at him, and he pointed at me. I dove to one side in time to avoid the lightning strike. I heard the thunder boom. I even heard the sizzle.

  I rolled again on instinct. The lightning struck where I had been. I kept it up, running, zigging, zagging, diving, rolling, bouncing around Trafalgar Square like a ping-pong ball.

  You may well wonder why I wasn’t running for the National Gallery. If I pressed up against the building, I couldn’t be targeted.

  But then I couldn’t distract him from the copy that bi-located behind him and shot him in the back of the head.

  The Jihadi fell from the National Gallery and landed with a splat.

  I let my copy fade away back into one of me. Pearson ran up to my side now that I wasn’t being chased by lightning. I holstered my gun and looked around the square. The riot really had broken up—or had at least moved on. The square had been packed with a noisy, angry riot setting things on fire, turning over cars, and calling for blood. They even had a supernatural light show where it looked like Allah himself was trying to light up an infidel—and if they had looked closely, the infidel that Kozbar had taken such offense to. They should have stayed and watched me get deep fried. Instead, they fled.

  The entire square was empty. The Soul Stone was gone. The Jihadists were gone. The rioters were gone. Everyone was gone.

  But I knew one thing. There was no way that the Jihadists knew that tonight would be the time to get to the Soul Stone. The riot had covered their retrieval. But how could they have been prepared to get to the stone through a riot? How could they have known that this riot would happen this way, on this day, and that there would be a massive crowd to disappear into?

  The only way they would have known is if they knew that someone would whip the crowd up into a frenzy and spark a riot. And only one man could have predicted that there would have been a riot – the one who sparked it.

  Kozbar.

  I narrowed my eyes, anger rising within me. I had given that bastard the presumption of innocence. What I should have done was consider everyone guilty until proved otherwise. Then again, I assumed everyone was good inside until they tried to shiv me, so either way, I would have lost that bet.

  “Kozbar’s in on it.”

  Pearson nodded, without even asking me about my conclusion. “The timing of the riot and the retrieval of the stone do seem to be suspicious.”

  I looked at Pearson like he was insane for such an understatement. He merely smiled at me and shrugged, causing droplets to fall off of his windbreaker. Pearson said, “So, what now?”

  I frowned. I considered the sudden quiet. After thunder in my ears and running through a riot, the calm felt unnatural. Despite the death of the weather Jihadi, there was still a sun-blackening sky overhead. I glanced at my watch. It was still only three in the afternoon, and it looked closer to three in the morning.

  I closed my eyes and thought a moment. Then I found I couldn’t think. My mind raced with everything that had bounced around my brain for the past few hours. There was Fowler and Toynbee from this morning, the riot, the police officers hunting me, the shadows hunting us, the rioters, the Soul Stone, and realizing that Fowler, Toynbee, and Kozbar were all together in one massive, insane plot that made no sense.

  I took a breath and said a quick prayer to one of the two Tommies I’d been baptized under – Thomas Aquinas.

  Come, Holy Spirit, Divine Creator, the true source of light and fountain of wisdom. Pour forth your brilliance upon my intellect, dissipate the darkness which covers me, that of sin and of ignorance. Grant me a penetrating mind to understand, a retentive memory, method and ease in learning, the lucidity to comprehend, and abundant grace in expressing myself. Guide the beginning of my work, direct its progress, and bring it to successful completion. This I ask through Jesus Christ, true God and true man, living and reigning with You and the Father, forever and ever. Amen.

  My mind cleared.

  The short version was that there was no way to guess where the stone would end up after I saw it in the square. Between Toynbee, Fowler, and Kozbar, the Soul Stone could be hidden any number of places. It could be in the Whitechapel complex, in one of a hundred rooms in the Muslim center complex. It could be hidden in The Museum. It could be in a business run by the Fowlers, or Kozbar could have passed it off to another Imam at another mosque, who had no connection to the master plan they had cooking up.

  Which meant there was only one option left.

  Dear God, if there is another way, please let me find it. But otherwise, please, I need to be able to find the Soul Stone. I presume it must reek of evil to such an extent that even in this city of darkness, its scent must be the most foul. So, if there is no other way, please give me back my charism to smell evil in all its—

  The prayer was answered before I even finished. The scent of sin and evil filled my nostrils without any warning. I snapped my head away from Pearson and vomited into the nearest puddle. I breathed in again and vomited again. Then the dry heaves kicked in, making it feel like my guts were going to come out next.

  I breathed through my mouth, though that wasn’t much better.

  I straightened and tried to take shallow breaths. I looked at Pearson and said, “Come on, let’s go.”

  I started walking. The scent took me south. We walked for the first ten minutes, but after watching me scarper around for a while, Pearson went on ahead and rented two bicycles for us.

  We biked for the next hour, going from the city of London to “Outer London.” We ended up in the London Borough of Croydon, in South London
. It was fairly large, at over thirty-three square miles, and is the London borough with the most population. In the middle was the historic town of Croydon. Formerly a small market town, it expanded into the most populous areas.

  Croydon looked … nice. It was one part early modern and one part ultra-modern, with a scattering of every era in-between. Some of the older brick buildings looked like they would have looked at home in the middle of a little German village (probably for tourists). A lot of them were Victorian, some were so early 20th century, they could have been some places in New York.

  The smell led me to a tower. It was massive. It was Empire State Building tall, about ninety stories tall. It was glass and steel. It was even less festive than my home town’s “Freedom Tower,” which at least had a few angles to it. This was more like a glass box with an attitude problem.

  We circled the block once so I could confirm where the Soul Stone was hidden.

  “Certain?” Pearson asked.

  I nodded. The smell was strongest at the tower. Pearson nodded. Before I did something idiotic and charged directly in, we withdrew to the nearest cafe.

  The first thing we did was to do an Internet search on the owner of the tower.

  Pearson flinched at his first result. “It was built over the ruins of Carfax Abby? I thought that was made up for Dracula.”

  I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Eh. My life feels like a Universal monster film, so why not?”

  Pearson shrugged. “Would you like to guess who owns it?”

  “Dame Polly Toynbee, and Lord Newby Fowler.”

  “However did you know?”

  16

  Faith of the Fatherless

  Since I couldn’t wrap my brain around what reason on God’s green Earth could have prompted Toynbee and Fowler to have Jihadists steal an artifact that could destroy the city, I did a quick Internet search via Duck Duck Go.