Qualia Page 9
Carly’s own paintings hid the magnolia of the walls. Each vibrant, colourful canvas expertly illuminated by a small spotlight, I studied them every time I visited. She may have been a bad gardener but she really was an excellent artist. Concentrating on alternative and esoteric urban settings, she was usually employed by big record companies or by publishing houses; her work was always in demand.
While she rattled around in the kitchen, tutting over the state of the flowers, I stared at my favourite painting, hoping to find yet another tiny detail that I’d so far managed to miss. This one had been commissioned as a book cover; the story had followed the short, disturbed lives of urban fairies. Forced to live as humans, they seemed to spend most of their time mourning the loss of a lifestyle that should have been theirs. The book hadn’t really been that good but it had sold very well. I harboured my suspicions that its beautiful cover had played a large part in the sales.
The painting showed a skinny Goth girl sitting, smoking, on the edge of a crumbling and deserted quay, a half-empty bottle of whisky at her side. She stared out to sea, smiling slightly at the ghostly shadows of dolphins, sirens and kelpies which plunged through the foaming water. There was a hint of flippers around her huge boots and her expression was one of pure longing. I could look at it for hours.
‘Here.’ A hand holding a glass of red wine broke my gaze with the painting. ‘Hey, this isn’t bad at all,’ Carly laughed, licking her lips, ‘I take it this isn’t one of those three pound bottles of plonk that you normally drink.’
I took a sip and shrugged – all wine tasted the same to me. ‘You told me to get something good,’ I said. ‘The one thing I can do is follow orders.’ Looking up at her, my breath caught and I had trouble swallowing my wine. She had changed into a long rust-coloured skirt and had thrown a man’s dark green silk shirt over a black vest top. With her long red hair hanging in mad curls and spirals, she could have just slipped into any of her fairy paintings and not looked out of place at all. ‘Wow. You look gorgeous.’ I downed the rest of my wine to hide my embarrassment then waggled the empty glass at her. ‘Very Botticelli. Any chance of another?’
‘Not if you’re going to compare me to a Botticelli,’ she sniffed and pointedly ignored my glass. ‘That’s way too stuffy.’
I hunted around in my head for any other artist. Finally I grasped at a name, I couldn’t remember exactly what he’d painted but I’m fairly sure that he was also a fan of redheads. ‘Erm … definitely a Rossetti?’ I winced, waiting for my ear to get twisted. But Carly gave me a huge grin.
‘That’s much better, fiery with the promise of sex.’ She grabbed the glass and sashayed off toward the kitchen leaving me stunned behind her. ‘I like it!’ she yelled over her shoulder.
Slightly shocked, I stood with my mouth open.
After refilling my glass, she wandered over to a large easel. A paint-stained dustsheet, which billowed occasionally in the slight breeze from the open window that looked out over her back garden, covered the canvas. She lifted one corner of the sheet; her lip caught between her teeth then paused.
‘Well, come on, don’t keep me in suspense.’ Carly wasn’t usually shy about showing off her work; I must have seen dozens of her paintings over the years. ‘Don’t tell me, let me guess, you’ve decided that an abstract square is really what it’s all about.’
‘What? No!’ Carly looked down at her hands, studying her paint-flecked fingernails. ‘It’s just that I got this commission to do a CD cover for a band called The Scourge. They had a very definite spec.’ She wafted the sheet as she thought about it. ‘Normally I would have turned it down but I got this idea which just wouldn’t go away, so I accepted.’ She sighed and, letting go of the sheet, twisted her hands together. ‘Now I’m wondering if I’ve got the whole thing really, really wrong.’
I shrugged and waited patiently to see her latest work.
The silence stretched on as Carly examined her motives for accepting the job. Finally she sighed and, without another word, whipped away the sheet.
Staring at the revealed painting, I could feel that my mouth was hanging open but I just didn’t have the willpower to close it.
Rendered in tones of blue and grey, a desolate and destroyed city stretched away into the distance. Smoke and dust from the burning and toppled buildings obscured the sun, giving the whole painting a hazy, foggy look. Bodies and trashed cars littered the street. Scruffy dogs nosed amongst the rubble; they seemed to ignore the young woman that was huddled in a shop doorway, eyes blank as she gazed out of the canvas, her thin fingers picking at the stitched yellow bunny in the corner of a small pink blanket. In the foreground, a mound of human dead had been piled high … no, wait, the dead weren’t all human. I took a step forward and closely studied the faces in the painting – there were demon corpses in the pile as well and what appeared to be a small, dead kangaroo.
‘You hate it, don’t you?’ Carly moved as if to bring the sheet back down.
‘No! Shh, I’m trying to look.’ I was probably a bit more abrupt than I should have been. Carly raised her eyebrows and stepped back.
There, just there! I leant in close to check the face. That was the demon I’d seen in the market – she’d been buying sweets, which had made me smile at the time. Her short white dress had shifted slowly as though in water and, when she’d turned to look at me, her long black hair had moved in the same way; the languid movements made her appear slightly out of time with everyone else. Her face was long and thin with lines of swirling blue tattoos that ran from the bridge of her nose down both cheeks to meet in a point at her chin. Catching me staring, she had given me a sultry smile revealing pointed white teeth which promised all sorts of beautiful pain. Then, dismissing me with a laugh, she had turned back to her perusal of the sweet stall.
In the painting, her hair hung limp and bedraggled, trodden into the black mud beneath the pyramid of dead. Her white dress was ripped, exposing one small torn breast. Open and pale among the dark tattoos, her clouded eyes stared vacantly into mine. Nauseated, I studied the rest of the dead; thankfully that was the only face I recognised.
Standing atop the mound, a spectacular angel held one fist above his head and bellowed his triumph into the whirling vortex of dark splashes that formed the sky. In the other he held a sword that dripped blue and white flame; it spread along the ground burning all things in its path. The angel’s silver and white armour, battered and bloody, partially reflected both the fire and the dead. Wings spread wide and head thrown back, his hair slicked into a long dark tail, the angel screamed with a savage and uncontrollable joy. A cold finger of fear gently lifted the hairs on the back of my neck. There was no doubt at all: Carly had managed to capture Michael perfectly.
‘Do you think he’ll mind?’ Carly looked worried, rubbing her hands together.
I shook my head. I was having trouble breathing.
‘I saw him outside your house one day; he had the most amazing face and I just remembered it when I was painting.’ She shrugged. ‘Joe, say something, is it really that bad?’
I pulled myself together and turned to face her. ‘You saw him outside my house?’
She nodded. ‘Yeah, a couple of years ago, I thought he was a friend of yours.’ She frowned. ‘He was with another man, long blond hair, both dressed in black suits. Oh my God.’ She put a hand to her mouth. ‘He is a friend of yours, isn’t he? I haven’t just painted in some random evangelist or double-glazing salesman, have I?’
Swallowing hard I forced a laugh. ‘I have no idea.’ I needed to change the subject. ‘What’s the album called?’
She rolled her eyes and pulled the dust sheet back over the painting. ‘Rage Against Restriction or some such crap.’ Pushing past me she headed for the kitchen. ‘Maybe, one of these days, I’ll be asked to work for a band that isn’t convinced the world’s going to end in fire and pain.’ She stuck her head back round the door. ‘You know, some nice folk band.’
I laughed. ‘Have you ev
er listened to folk music?’ I leant on the door frame. ‘Let’s face it, a lot of folk music is all about dead sailors, mad witches, rape and fratricide. Most of it really isn’t big on the cheerful stuff.’
‘Hmm.’ Carly stuck her head into one of the cupboards and began pulling out ingredients for a meal: lentils, beans and vegetables. I indulged in a moment’s guilty reminiscence about the bacon butty I’d abandoned earlier. ‘So, come on, what did you think of it?’ She paused with her head still in the cupboard. ‘I can take a bit of criticism, you know.’ Standing up, she stood with one hip against the oven, her lip caught between her teeth; obviously she wasn’t expecting a good review.
Putting my glass down, I crossed the tiny kitchen to give her a hug. ‘Your painting is exactly what you intended it to be: slightly disturbing.’ I thought back to what I’d seen. ‘No, scratch that, it’s extremely worrying. It’s also beautifully painted, eye catching and will delight the record company. I can see this one being made into a poster; it will sell in its thousands.’
Carly reached up and held my face in both hands. With a smile she gave me a little shake then kissed me on the nose. ‘You are a definite smooth talker,’ she laughed. ‘But I’m not going to argue with you. I keep it covered up because even I can’t bear to look at it for long; it actually upsets me to think I could paint something that dark.’
For a moment we stared at each other and, just as I had worked myself up to take the opportunity to kiss her, she pushed me away. ‘Go and read a book or something, I can’t cook with you hovering about like a bad smell.’
‘Gee, thanks.’ Pausing only long enough to top up my glass, I scooted out of the kitchen and headed back to the living room. Avoiding the painting, (I told myself that I couldn’t really see moving shadows beneath the dust sheet.) I picked up a random book and then flopped onto Carly’s squishy deep green sofa with a sigh.
I tried to read, I really did, but the wine, deep sofa and the warm afternoon sun conspired against me and, within seconds, I had slipped away into the dark.
Despite my moans about the lack of protein in Carly’s cooking, dinner was wonderful and, after lingering over Irish coffee, we finally headed back to the sofa.
‘Fancy watching a film?’ Carly asked. ‘If you can stay awake long enough?’ She pinched my arm.
I winced; Carly had pinched me awake for the meal and had taken great delight in pointing out the wet drool patch on one of her cushions. ‘Sure,’ I yawned, ‘but nothing too deep and meaningful. I don’t know what you put in those coffees of yours but I feel quite floaty.’
Carly pushed a silver disc into the side of the TV then, kicking off her clogs, collapsed beside me. One foot tucked under her thigh, the other pushed deep into the huge multicoloured rug that took pride of place in her living room. Leaning against me, she lifted one of my arms and draped it over her shoulder.
‘Conan the Barbarian?’ I whinged. ‘Really? Wasn’t there anything else you fancied?’
Carly laughed then put her hand over her mouth as she burped gently. ‘Oh dear, in this state, I’d probably fancy anything.’
‘What, even me?’ I just couldn’t resist pushing my luck.
‘Oh I’ve always fancied you.’ She turned to look at me; her face was very close to mine. ‘I’ve just never done anything about it because you live next door and I didn’t want to lose a good neighbour.’
‘Oh …’ Tucked under my arm, she couldn’t really get away. Taking advantage of that, I leant closer until our lips were no more than millimetres apart. ‘Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to lose all those cakes.’ I chose to ignore the part of my brain that was screaming this was a bad idea for oh so many reasons. Closing the gap I pressed my lips to hers. She sighed and pressed closer, her tongue flicking out to run along the underside of my upper lip.
Gathering her up, I slid forward then turned to lay her down with her head on the cushion, still warm from where I’d been sitting. She giggled and raised her eyebrows at me. The little voice was now silent, pushed aside in a wave of expectation. Leaning forward I kissed her again, happy when she snaked her arms around my neck, pulling me deeper into the kiss. She smelled of summer: watermelons, coconut and was that a slight hint of rotten eggs?
There is always that awkward little moment when you try to work out whether this is just kissing or kissing leading to more. I was pretty confident that we were heading toward more, so sneaking my hand between us, I began to undo the buttons on her shirt.
Carly screamed: OK, I had definitely read those signals wrong. Leaping up, I began to apologise but she stared past me and continued to scream, her eyes wide and her fists clenched at her sides
I think I managed to say ‘Wha–’ before being physically ripped backwards and dumped, hard, onto the floor. Drunk and slightly confused from the overload of hormones, I rolled and managed to get to my hands and knees. I was getting fed up with being dumped onto the floor; it was happening so often that I was beginning to feel like a family dog that wasn’t allowed on the sofa.
Two demons stood in the living room. One was Drekavak, the other a species I wasn’t familiar with: tall, heavily built and the colour of a week-dead corpse. It had a long thin face with vaguely human features – if humans had the eyes of a cat and necks wider than their heads. Unlike the Drekavak it was dressed in an expensive-looking suit, blue with a faint pinstripe, which matched the grey T-shirt beneath. Long, thin, bare feet protruded from the trouser bottoms, the nails painted black and filed to a point.
Reaching for my ’dusters I decided that I really was the most stupid man on earth. Even though I’d actually stopped to pick up some formidable weaponry, I’d left my coat in the hall. Reaching behind me, I went for my knife.
‘Don’t do that.’ The white demon had a deep voice. ‘It’s unlikely you’d get to it before he …’ he pointed to the Drekavak ‘… got to her.’ The Drekavak smiled and ran a gentle claw through Carly’s hair. Grabbing my unresisting arm, the white demon pushed me face down onto the floor. ‘Stay still. We’re just here to deliver a message and pick up a take-away,’ he said. ‘You took something that wasn’t yours.’ Bringing his face very close to my head he whispered into my ear. ‘We want it back. We also want the box that you delivered to Metatron.’
It looked up and nodded to the other demon, who gave that little hissing laugh again. Then, grabbing a limp and traumatised Carly, he hauled her to her feet, cuddling her against his pale, scaled chest. ‘That was my sister you stabbed.’ It stopped laughing and ran a single claw down Carly’s arm; a thin line of claret followed in its wake.
Sister? I couldn’t really say much to that as my mouth was pushed into the deep pile of the rug.
‘She’s not dead yet, but I think she wishes she was.’ The Drekavak paused to give Carly a little shake. She whimpered and kept her eyes tight shut. ‘That fucking knife of yours is really something.’ He reached up a paw and tenderly pushed Carly’s hair away from her face. She shuddered, making small and intense mewling sounds. ‘Hush now,’ the demon whispered in her ear. Her eyes widened and the colour left her face, leaving her hair and lips livid.
‘Go on, take her away.’ The white demon nodded at his partner. ‘Remember, we need her.’
Nodding, the Drekavak tightened its grip on Carly’s arm then vanished.
Panicked beyond all reason I struggled to get my face off the floor. ‘Noooo!’
The hand disappeared from my neck. ‘You know what we want.’ It felt as though it had hit me with a brick and everything faded to black.
When I finally woke up, the film credits were rolling and Arnie was heading off into the sunset – sad, hurt and minus the girl. I knew how he felt. Getting to my feet actually took three attempts as there appeared to be a large egg attached to the base of my skull; it was obviously pulling me off balance. ‘I’ve got to stop getting smacked over the head.’ I whinged at Arnie; he didn’t care, he had troubles of his own. ‘Eventually I’m just going to be one big lump.’
‘What the hell am I going to do now?’ Washing the tablets down with water, I shouted at Carly’s little platoon of spider plants that drooped in healthy green splendour all over the top of her fridge. Sliding onto the floor I waited impatiently for the throbbing to subside.
Eventually, I could turn my head without hearing bells. I moaned a lot about being indestructible but, just occasionally, that ability to heal was a real blessing. I stared at my reflection in the window, a sick face made even paler by the darkness of the night outside. Finally making a decision, I took out my mobile phone and, with a couple of deep breaths, prepared to do something I had never even considered before: I was going to call the boss.
Metatron had always contacted me – I couldn’t think of one instance in over a thousand years where I’d called him. I dialled the number and waited for it to connect. Within seconds I found myself standing in the darkness by the side of a road, somewhere out in the country. The weather certainly wasn’t what it had been in Birmingham and, battered by almost horizontal rain, I squinted as I looked around.