Year Zero (2000), page 16
It would all have been easy if it hadn't been for Angie, but the Queen had Angie and Angie was far more tempting than any mere hand. Angie was dancing too, and she could see her mother plainly enough now that anger and the music had given her the power of sight. Angie was reaching out to her mother now, wanting her to join the dance, unable to understand why Molly couldn't just fall into step.
Molly knew that the real contest couldn't be engaged, let alone won, by looking into Honeysuckle's eyes, or the Queen's eyes. The real competition had to be joined and won by looking into Angie's eyes and forcing a way past all the hurt and all the misunderstanding. Somehow, Molly had to make Angie see that she had to come to her real mother now, because no substitute would do—and until Molly had made her daughter see that, she had to prevent the music of Faerie stealing the music of the spheres from wherever it was hidden in her unconsulted memory.
Tom was only one ten-fingered man, but his six-stringed guitar wasn't just a guitar. It was more akin to a synthesizer, with samples of every sound known to fay and man embedded in its memory. His fingers were doing more than plucking strings; they were reaching into the heart of the instrument, which had a lead running straight into the heart of the world. With the master of the underworld to accompany him, Tom was more than an orchestra, more than Orpheus and more than Apollo himself. Whatever magic it was that gave music the power to stir emotion, Tom had it all —and he aimed it all at Molly.
If the only defence that Molly had had was a mother's love, she'd have been well and truly blasted, because she'd had that from the moment she'd given birth to Christine, and it hadn't ever been enough—but she had something better now. She had stubbornness, and the knowledge that the Devil himself had respected her as an adversary. The fays couldn't make a dent in that. So Molly held on to what it was she had, and she reached out for Angie.
And in the end, the Queen of the Fays had no alternative but to let Angie reach out in return. There was far too much distance separating them, of course, but that didn't matter. All Molly had to do was flick her whip and send the end snaking out into the vortex of air that was thick as blood, where it cracked like a wry smile—and when Angie took hold of it, Molly began to reel her in.
Molly could read, not merely in Angie's pale blue eyes but in the Queen's bright red ones, that she had made her deal and won her game. Even so, she waited until she actually had Angie's hand in hers before she began to let the hidden music out.
She had expected something symphonic, classical and grand, but it wasn't like that at all. It was all drum and bass, brutal and elementary—the kind of music no one had ever thought to compose before computers. When it melted into the music of Tom's guitar, though, it merged with the melody far more smoothly than she would ever have imagined possible.
Molly knew then that the vast spacefaring cephalopods who had kick-started humankind's evolutionary ascent from the cyanobacterial slime had not simply been messing about. They had had a plan, and it was probably working, after a fashion.
37
As Molly dropped the whip and clasped Angie to her bosom she saw the Queen of the Fays and all her minions flee into the grieving trees. The forest swallowed them up, but as they faded into its shadows they took the precious music with them.
All the stars of Faerie went out, except for the scattered fireflies. As the living lights flared and died Molly caught the briefest glimpse of a big black cat sawing away at a Stradivarius, whose eyes gleamed as brightly green and as full of life as any vivid star she had ever seen or could ever have imagined.
There was ecstasy in those eyes, but there was something plaintive too. Molly had often heard it said that you should be careful for what you wished for, in case you got it, and she felt that everything that had happened to her since she had stepped out of the world she knew was proof of that—except in her own case. All she had wanted was to free Angie from the Queen of the Fays, and there was no curse in winning that objective. However cunning fate might have cheated her guide or her adversary, Molly felt certain that she had come out of it well.
When she had picked herself up from the stone-clad floor and dusted herself down, Molly found that all she was holding was a wooden doll. She wasn't unduly disappointed by that. After all, the fays had to give you a token of your vigilance if your kids weren't really lost and abandoned, and Molly's weren't. There would undoubtedly be formalities to go through before she got them all the way back, but they weren't lost and they weren't abandoned and the final deal was as good as cut and dried.
"The punter's gone, dear," said Torquemadam, who was lounging in the doorway. "You can take the outfit off now." The lazy expression on her face held not the slightest echo of the astonishment that had been there when Tom had pulled his vanishing trick. The brothel-keeper had obviously managed to persuade herself that she had seen everything, even though she obviously hadn't.
Molly patiently divested herself of the warrior princess outfit and began to put her own clothes back on.
"Weren't thinking of coming back full time, were you, Moll?" Torquemadam asked, in a carefully neutral tone that wasn't an invitation but nevertheless held out the possibility of mutually-beneficial negotiation.
"No," said Molly, shortly.
"Perhaps as well," the dungeon-keeper said, effortlessly switching into calculated insult mode for purposes of provocation. "You're probably getting too old for this kind of lark."
Torquemadam wasn't a day under fifty herself, but she was just a ringmaster nowadays. She was a dominatrix's dominatrix.
Molly picked up the whip and coiled it before handing it back to its owner. "You could leave me your phone number if you like, though," the whoremistress added, not entirely unhopefully. "Experience counts for something, after all. I'd give it a week or two, of course—make sure that eye's as good as new again. There's something about a black eye that says victim, and that's not the sort of image my clients pay good money for."
"Sorry, Sylv," Molly told her. "I really am out of it for good."
"Straight too, I bet," said Torquemadam sceptically.
"I've even kicked the Prozac," Molly told her.
"You need to be careful, dear," the whoremistress told her, not unkindly or unseriously. "If you give up too many of the things that used to turn you on, you can soon end up where it's awfully dark and lonely. Believe me, love—I've seen it happen too many times."
"Not to me," Molly assured her, as she picked up the doll that was her token of Angie's safe delivery. "I've still got enough spare cash to buy some equipment of my own."
"Not this kind of equipment, I hope," Torquemadam said, with unfeigned coldness. The specialized market to which she catered had always been substantial, but there were too many amateurs about nowadays as well as too many freelancers and she'd been feeling the cold winds of economic depression ever since the golden days of the Lawson boom. If things had been better, she'd never have shown Molly the door in the first place—the smack had just been an excuse.
"Not this kind of equipment," Molly assured her. "My days as a warrior princess are over. It's September of year zero, and it's time for me to start dancing to a different tune. One way and another, I've got to upgrade to CD."
38
When Lilith rang Molly on a borrowed mobile to say that someone had just called at her old flat in Arcadia House and had left an envelope for collection Molly wasted no time in hopping on a bus. Unfortunately, she had nothing else to do; it had not been as easy as she had hoped to find the kind of job of which Social Services might have approved. There was plenty of cash-in-hand work available in the environs of Camden Lock but Molly knew that she had to steer clear of the black economy, as well as the kinds of legitimate labour that would require her to be out of the new flat at the times when children might be expected to be in it.
Molly hardly dared to hope that the envelope might contain news of Christine, but she couldn't imagine why anyone else would use such a roundabout method of getting in touch with her now that she had her own phone. At least the journey released her, if only for a while, from the awful restlessness of wanting to do something but not having a clue where to start.
"Hello, dear," Lilith said, as she unlocked the metal security-gate guarding her door. "The envelope's on the mantelpiece. I'll put the kettle on. Have you had any news?"
"Angie's still safe and sound at the Jarvises," Molly said. "She hasn't shown any sign of doing another runner, and they're watching her like hawks in any case. Liz Peach isn't happy, though. Because Angie won't say a word to the shrink about what happened, all the child abuse warning bells are ringing, and that's blocked the processing pipeline that's supposed to be delivering her back to me. At least she's got the sense not to tell them that she was snatched by the Queen of the Fays because the bitch wanted a souvenir of my galactic holiday—that would have put a real twist in the psych brigade's knickers. Oh shit."
"What is it?" Lilith asked. She was still in the kitchenette waiting for the kettle to boil.
"It's from Wingate," Molly said, dully. "The freak at Peaslee Pharmaceuticals who cooks up rejuvenation serums with unfortunate side effects."
"A passion for housework isn't so very unfortunate," Lilith observed, casting a critical eye around her as she carried the tea-tray into the living room. Lilith was a conspicuous subscriber to the Quentin Crisp school of housework, which held that the dust didn't get any worse after the first four years. Given that she'd been Adam's rebellious first wife, ousted in favour of the domestically-minded Eve, Molly said, accepting a cup of tea but refusing a home-made biscuit. "It was the mind-meld with the giant octopus at the dawn of time."
"Well," said Lilith, judiciously, "if you'd let well alone, you wouldn't even know about that. The trouble with you humans is that you just can't resist temptation."
Molly thought that was a bit rich, considering that the entire crew of Arcadia House's thirteenth floor tenants had spent thousands of years in the temptation and supernatural retribution business, but she had to admit that Lilith made a super cup of tea. She was almost tempted to ask what the secret ingredient was that the arch-demon mixed with the sense not to tell them that she was snatched by the Queen of the Fays because the bitch wanted a souvenir of my galactic holiday—that would have put a real twist in the psych brigade's knickers. Oh shit."
"What is it?" Lilith asked. She was still in the kitchenette waiting for the kettle to boil.
"It's from Wingate," Molly said, dully. "The freak at Peaslee Pharmaceuticals who cooks up rejuvenation serums with unfortunate side effects."
"A passion for housework isn't so very unfortunate," Lilith observed, casting a critical eye around her as she carried the tea-tray into the living room. Lilith was a conspicuous subscriber to the Quentin Crisp school of housework, which held that the dust didn't get any worse after the first four years. Given that she'd been Adam's rebellious first wife, ousted in favour of the domestically-minded Eve, Molly said, accepting a cup of tea but refusing a home-made biscuit. "It was the mind-meld with the giant octopus at the dawn of time."
"Well," said Lilith, judiciously, "if you'd let well alone, you wouldn't even know about that. The trouble with you humans is that you just can't resist temptation."
Molly thought that was a bit rich, considering that the entire crew of Arcadia House's thirteenth floor tenants had spent thousands of years in the temptation and supernatural retribution business, but she had to admit that Lilith made a super cup of tea. She was almost tempted to ask what the secret ingredient was that the arch-demon mixed with the PG-tips, but she had a suspicion that it might only add one more item to the catalogue of her discontents. The reason she'd refused the biscuit was that she knew that Lilith tended to lace all her home baking with something far sweeter than honest cane sugar.
"What does it say?" Lilith asked, nodding in the direction of the note.
"He wants to meet me. Six o'clock in the Atlantis Bookshop in Museum Street. He wants me to make sure I'm not being followed." Molly double-checked the scientist's seemingly-hasty scribble, just to make sure that this unlikely congeries of instructions was indeed the gist of the missive.
"That's nice," said Lilith. "He must fancy you."
"Somehow," Molly said, with a sigh, "I don't think it's a date he has in mind." She looked at Lilith speculatively, trying to imagine what the old lady might have looked like when she was young, beautiful and—if rumour could be trusted—utterly vicious. Having seen what happened to an angel who's been lost on Earth for less than a week, Molly wasn't in the least astonished that Lilith's outward appearance had run to seed once she had opted out of the role of ultimate femme fatale and baby-murderer, but she suspected that there was still a very sharp mind lurking behind the mask of absolute inoffensiveness. Beelzebub was an honest dolt and Mephistopheles a transparent fusspot, but Molly had always known that there was more to Lilith than met the eye.
"Spit it out, dear," said the arch-demon, as if she were able to read Molly's mind. "Even if I don't know the answer, two heads can chew a question better than one."
"I lied to you," Molly said, by way of laying a little groundwork. "About what the Devil said to me in the back of that car, I mean. He was a lot nastier than I let on. I wasn't really trying to fool you, or even to put your minds at rest—it was more a matter of feeling bolshie. He'd ordered me to give you a message calculated to upset you, so I thought I'd give you one that wouldn't, just to spite him."
"It's not usually a good idea to try to cheat the Devil," Lilith said, shaking her head pensively. "Why tell me now?"
"Because the Queen of the Fays said that there was something even nastier that he didn't tell me, and I'd rather like to know whether it's true."
"Well," said Lilith, "I hate to say it of a sister in spirit, but the Queen of the Fays is almost as big a liar as the Old Man, especially when she wants something. I presume that what she told you fitted in uncomfortably with what the Devil told you—what he really told you, rather than what you told us."
Molly nodded. "She said that the world is going to end at the end of the year. And what the Devil really told me to tell you is that he doesn't need you and wouldn't take you back if you wanted to come back, because he has some real soldiers now. He threw in a few extra insults, but that's the bottom line. I didn't think much about it until I put it together with what the Queen said—and then I began to ask myself what he might want a brand new army for. I know that he's only a metaphor made flesh, a grab bag of human terrors—but as tall dark Tom pointed out to me, that makes entities like him a lot more real than any mere person. I understand that anything he does is only a representation of what we do to ourselves, and that no one really expects the world to end on December 31 st, especially after the Y2K thing proved to be such a damp squib, but I just ... well, you're supposed to know him as well as anyone ever has."
"The rumour-mongers who made me Queen of Hell were far too extravagant, " Lilith told her, dismissively. "Nick and I were never that close. Like Adam, he always preferred Eve. Men have no taste at all, have they? I have to admit, though, that laying on an apocalypse for the day on which every madman in the world is expecting one is very much his sort of thing—especially after he let last December 31st alone on pedantic grounds, thus lulling the unwary into a false sense of security. He always had a wicked sense of humour. He didn't give you any clue, I suppose, as to who these real soldiers might be?"
"None that I noticed," Molly admitted. "My first thought was the greys, even though they seemed perfectly benign to me. I suppose that story they fed me about wanting to make a new world but not wanting merely to recreate the old one might be a load of old cobblers, especially if they're in the pocket of the Father of Lies, but ... I can't buy it. On due reflection, definitely not."
"Why so definite?" Lilith inquired.
"Well," said Molly, hoping that her hostess wouldn't feel insulted, "it was that cosmic pleasure-cruise that did it. We didn't get any further than Altair—which is just around the corner, galactically speaking—but it was far enough from Earth for me to realise just how big and strange the universe is. To be perfectly honest, it made the terrors of the human condition seem rather petty and the myth-building capacities of the human imagination a trifle pathetic. And if that hadn't been enough to convince me that it wouldn't matter a damn, on a cosmic scale, if the human race did gobble itself up in some kind of evil apocalypse, what I eventually remembered about the asteroid-sized octopuses put the icing on the cake. I've seen the real writing on the wall of infinity. No matter how big a cheese he is down here, the greys and the octopuses are a whole lot bigger than the Devil out there. They aren't his soldiers and they never will be. Whoever—or whatever—he's recruited, I think he's done it right here."
Lilith nibbled a biscuit appreciatively, with a faraway look in her eye. "I think I'll have to take your word for all that, dear," she said, softly. "So far as I'm concerned, there's only ever been Eden and the wilderness beyond its hedge. Plus Hell and Pandemonium, of course. The Devil's exactly the same. Bad dreams have bounded him in a nutshell, with infinite space forever beyond his reach. The reason we both became redundant—although he hasn't admitted it yet—is that humans discovered far better excuses for their sins. Who needs demons when you have genes? We haven't entirely vanished from the scene, but even we're not proud of the fact that we've mostly retired to the top floor of a third-rate tower block on a sink estate that everyone refers to as the WasteDisposal Unit. What you call the human yearning for moral order has moved into the laboratory, at least in these parts."
Molly had already returned her curious gaze to the piece of paper she was holding in her hand. "Wingate's laboratory," she said, nodding her head, "and all the other ones where genetic engineers are working on biological warfare and software engineers on computer viruses. According to the machines we built to run things for us, this wasn't scheduled as the year two thousand—it was marked down as year double-zero, the year that didn't make sense. I met a man not so long ago who told me that the machines were right and we were wrong—that it really is year zero, and that it's ridiculous to pretend otherwise. I think that's what finally persuaded me that I had to make a new start."
