Weaveworld by Clive Barker Page A

she seemed more glamorous than he’d ever seen her; eyes shining like dark gems.
    ‘Why don’t we walk together a little way?’ she said.
    ‘I have to speak to your father,’ he insisted, but she was already turning from him, laughing lightly. Before he could voice a protest she was away around the corner. He followed. There were a number of lamps not working along the street, and the silhouette he dogged was fitful. But she trailed her laughter still, and he went after it.
    ‘Where are you going?’ he wanted to know.
    She only laughed again.
    Above their heads the clouds were moving quickly, stars glimmering between, their fires too feeble to illuminate much below. They caught Cal’s eye for an instant, and when helooked back at Geraldine she was turning to him, making a sound somewhere between a sigh and a word.
    The shadows that embraced her were dense, but they unfolded even as he watched, and what they revealed made his gut somersault. Geraldine’s face had dislodged somehow, her features running like heated wax. And now, as the facade fell away, he saw the woman beneath. Saw, and knew: the browless face, the joyless mouth. Who else but Immacolata?
    He would have run then, but that he felt the cold muzzle of a gun against his temple, and the Salesman’s voice said:
    ‘Make a sound and it’s going to hurt.’
    He kept his silence.
    Shadwell gestured towards the black Mercedes that was parked at the next intersection.
    ‘Move,’ he said.
    Cal had no choice, scarcely believing, even as he walked, that this scene was taking place on a street whose paving cracks he’d counted since he was old enough to know one from two.
    He was ushered into the back of the car, separated from his captors by a partition of heavy glass. The door was locked. He was powerless. All he could do was watch the Salesman slide into the driver’s seat, and the woman get in beside.
    There was little chance he’d be missed from the party, he knew, and littler chance still that anyone would come looking for him. It would simply be assumed that he’d tired of the festivities and headed off home. He was in the hands of the enemy, and helpless to do anything about it.
    What would Mad Mooney do now, he wondered.
    The question vexed him only a moment, before the answer came. Taking out the celebratory cigar Norman had given him, he leaned back in the leather seat, and lit up.
    Good , said the poet; take what pleasure you can, while there’s still pleasure to be had. And breath to take it with.

V

    IN THE ARMS OF MAMA PUS
    n the haze of fear and cigar smoke he soon lost track of their route. His only clue to their whereabouts, when they finally came to a halt, was that the air smelt sharply of the river. Or rather, of the acreage of black mud that was exposed at low tide; expanses of muck which he’d had a terror of as a child. It wasn’t until he’d reached double figures that he’d been able to walk along Otterspool Promenade without an adult between him and the railings.
    The Salesman ordered him from the car. He got out obediently – it was difficult not to be obedient with a gun in his face. Shadwell immediately snatched the cigar from Cal’s mouth, grinding it beneath his heel, then escorted him through a gate into a walled compound. Only now, as he laid eyes on the canyons of household refuse ahead did Cal realize where they’d brought him: the Municipal Rubbish Tip. In former years, acres of parkland had been built on the city’s detritus, but there was no longer the money to transform trash into lawns. Trash it remained. Its stench – the sweet and sour of rotting vegetable matter – even overpowered the smell of the river.
    ‘Stop,’ said Shadwell, when they reached a place that seemed in no way particular.
    Cal looked round in the direction of the voice. He could see very little, but it seemed Shadwell had pocketed his gun. Seizing the instant, he began to run, not choosing any particular direction, merely seeking