Better the Devil Read online

  "That's Ms," Hannah said automatically, and then realised what else he'd said. "Restore the balance?"

  "You will understand."

  Hannah scoffed. "Oh right, yes, of course I will. But tell me, Houdini, just how are you going to remove us from this place? In case you hadn't noticed it just happens to be full of very big, very strong uber-"

  She found herself standing next to Brand in the car park, Norrell gone.

  All of a sudden she realised what their rescuer had meant by restore the balance.

  In a sense, they were back where they were before this shit had started.

  Because the car park was filled with at least twenty dark figures.

  And every one of them was a ripper.

  Chapter Ten

  "This shit," Hannah Chapter said, "is starting to give me a migraine."

  "Then I'd appreciate it," Brand replied slowly and quietly, "if you'd find us a way out of here before retiring to bed."

  "The van. They left the keys."

  Brand nodded and stared across the fog-layered car park. "I don't think they're quite aware of us yet. Maybe when they're kennelled-"

  "No theories, Brainiac. Just move."

  The two of them made their way towards the van, all too aware that the rippers could spring to life at any moment. But when they reached the vehicle without incident, they looked at each other in surprise.

  "I don't understand this at all," Brand said.

  "Who cares?" Hannah said. "We get behind the wheel and they'll never catch up."

  "No, there's something wr-"

  As Brand spoke, there was a sudden series of strange cracking sounds from the rippers, and he stopped in mid-sentence to listen, to look. The tall, cadaverous things appeared to be bending backwards as if involved in some stretch exercise and the noise he heard was the cracking of their spines. But this was no exercise. He saw that the rippers were actually inverting themselves, arms out straight behind them until the blades at their tips neared and then touched the floor. The limbs, together with their legs, then began to crack themselves, apparently snapping at knee and elbow, but in fact forming and then locking into reversed joints that themselves sprung blades. These newly shaped limbs then flexed, forcing the torso of each ripper up, and at the same time the necks of the things snapped their heads forward until they rested on their one-time chests. They looked, in the end, like grotesque spiders ready to scuttle along the floor.

  Brand realised it was as if they were playing some kind of game with him and Hannah, changing to be able to keep pace with the van.

  The academic paled. "They're not supposed to be able to do that."

  "They weren't supposed to be able to follow us home, either," Hannah scolded him.

  She pushed the academic into the front seat of the van.

  "I know, I know... and I still don't understand how they did. It's almost as if something is remapping them - changing the rules - like the poor bastards on the Eye."

  In the van's left wing mirror, he saw the rippers snap taut and ready to move. He felt their re-formed claws clacking on the concrete.

  "What the hell do we do?"

  Hannah plonked into the driving seat and stared at him, as unequivocal in her reply as he had been in his instruction to run the day before. "We drive."

  The American rammed the van into gear and slammed her foot on the gas, tearing away in a screech of tyres. The van accelerated up the exit ramp of the underground car park and out into daylight, bouncing as it hit the dip. As it landed, she kept her foot flat to the floor. There was, after all, a security gate to get through.

  "That thing's solid iron!" Brand protested. He had flattened his hands against the roof to steady himself and had to shout to be heard above the roar of the engine. "We're going to look like a bloody concertina!"

  Hannah set her jaw. "Maybe, but I'm gambling that as this is an Accord vehicle, designed for the hunt, it's more than your average Transit."

  "That's one hell of a gam- Oh, crap."

  The van ploughed into the gate and Hannah's gamble, it seemed, paid off. Though the bodywork in front of the windscreen did indeed crumple like a concertina, it also revealed beneath a much sturdier metal ram, part of a reinforced subframe that probably came complete with armouring, roll cage and all the extras.

  It was the gate that was the casualty. Both halves of the solid barrier were ripped from their pivot mounts and sent spinning and crashing into the thoroughfare outside. As they clanged across the road, panicked pedestrians and cars did a little dance before hurling themselves frantically or skidding uncontrollably out of the way. Think that was a shock? Hannah thought, glancing at the rippers in the rearview mirror. The bastards had begun their pursuit, already crested the dip, and were accelerating through the remains of the gate. Wait 'til you see what's coming next.

  As she flung the van into a ninety-degree turn, she only hoped that the rippers would ignore all but their dedicated target, and leave the people alone. This, it transpired, seemed to be the single concession to humanity in their otherwise nightmarish make-up - or maybe it was just pure single-mindedness. Whichever; as the rippers skittered through the Londoners' midst like the army of spiders they now resembled, they seemed intent only on harming herself and Brand, and bar the odd unavoidable collision it looked like the only serious damage was going to be the cost of these people's psychiatrist bills.

  But she couldn't worry about anybody else right now - for the moment she and Brand had to look after themselves. Not that Brand was any more use than a nodding dog on the dashboard, mind, but safe harbour needed to be found for the both of them.

  Hannah treated him to a whistle-stop tour of the capital, as if she were some manic American tourist given free reign of all the attractions on hand, and only a few minutes to do them. As she slung the van, tyres screeching, from street to street, the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and Tower Bridge flashed by. Hamley's, Harrods and Horse Guards' Parade. But her every turn was shadowed by the pursuing rippers, and more than once she had to resort to some deft manoeuvring in an attempt to crush the things beneath her wheels. She smiled grimly as she managed to take out one or two, but there were just too many and all the time the main pack was gaining ground. She needed to get out of the actual centre and pick up speed.

  As Hannah went for it, Brand was so dizzied by the previous few minutes that he couldn't even recognise the dual carriageway they ended up on. It ran alongside some park. If anything he was more concerned with wondering why they were not crashing nose-first into a police roadblock, or at least had half of the blues and twos in the capital wailing on their tail. But then the answer suddenly clicked. This was an Accord vehicle they were riding in, and while the workaday police almost definitely did not know what the Accord was, they probably had standing orders not to approach their people or anything bearing their plates under any circumstances. Which was all well and good for an unhindered escape, but it also meant that they would get no help at all from the boys in blue.

  In the heart of the biggest city in Europe, they were entirely on their own.

  "Where exactly are we going?" Brand asked.

  Hannah Chapter looked at him as though he were an idiot, and pointed straight ahead through the windscreen. "That way. Very fast."

  "No, I mean an actual destination," Brand persisted. "We can't just careen around the centre of London like something out of-" the academic struggled for a film title, remembered a DVD he'd caught Ness watching "-like Brannigan."

  Brannigan? Hannah thought, clueless. Who the... oh, the hell with it. "I don't know, Brainiac," she countered forcefully and in a slightly high-pitched tone, slamming her hands on the wheel. "Maybe the top-secret headquarters of International Ripper Rescue. Or I know, how about Alcoholics Anonymous." She glanced in the mirror, seeing the ever-persistent scuttling black shapes. "They're used to your DTs, right?"

  "There's no need to... I only meant... I only meant we need a plan." To hell with you, Brand thought. May as we
ll be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb... and God knows, I could use it. He dug into his pocket and felt his fingers close around the reassuring shape of his hip flask, and stuck to the side of it, something else. Puzzled, he pulled it out.

  It was the slip of paper he'd been given back at Exham. He'd completely forgotten about it.

  Brand frowned. There was something written on the slip in a barely legible and semi-literate scrawl.

  Staybl Moos Wi.

  "Whatcha got?" Hannah asked.

  "Not sure. I got it from..." Brand paused, remembering Chapter's reaction at the time. "No, never mind."

  "You were going to say Popeye, weren't you? You were going to say you got it from Popeye?"

  "It wasn't Popeye. But all right... yes." Staybl Moos Wi, he thought. What the hell is-?

  Hannah snatched the slip from his hand and read out loud. Maybe it was something about her American accent, but it suddenly made more sense to the academic. "Stay-bull Mews, double-yer-eye?"

  "Stable Mews," Brand said suddenly, catching on. "And not double-you-eye... double-you-one. It's an address."

  "An address?"

  "Stable Mews, W1. I know it. Steed used to live there."

  "Steed?"

  "Worked for the Ministry when I was first assigned to Department Q. Gave me a bottle of champagne to wish me luck. Some woman shot the cork off."

  "So you wanna what - pop in and pass the time of day?" Hannah snapped. She swung the wheel hard to the left and bumped a ripper that had suddenly accelerated alongside. It never saw the double-decker bus. "For cryin' out loud, Brand, will you please tell me what this has to do with the shit we're in?"

  "I don't know. Maybe he's telling us to go there... not to Steed - he left - but to go to Stable Mews."

  "Popeye? What, so he's a psychic, now? He just happened to know we'd end up back in London being chased by rippers and racin' around like Mike the Headless Chicken?"

  "I don't know!"

  "I'm Popeye the Psychic Man, I SEE you'll be in a van... watch out for those rippers, blades sharper than clippers, I'm..."

  "Miss Chapter," Brand interrupted. "What do we have to lose?"

  "All right, all right." Another ripper came up on the side and this time Hannah mounted the pavement and trapped it, tearing it apart against the perimeter wall of the park. Sparks spewed from the side of the van. "Which way is it?"

  "From here, I'm not exactly sure," Brand said, "but I think it's back the way we came."

  "Jesus!" Hannah said through grinding teeth.

  "Organisation like the Accord, you'd think they'd at least have satnav," Brand said, smiling despite himself.

  "Just... let... me... drive."

  She drove. Hannah scattered the rippers behind them as she threw the van into an emergency U-turn and then back along the dual carriageway against the flow of traffic. The oncoming cars that honked madly and slewed aside before her proved useful in slowing the rippers that followed, and for a little while they were free of pursuit. But as they sped back into the heart of the city, a few dark specks appeared once more, distantly in the rearview mirror.

  Then, out of nowhere, one of them landed on the roof. There was a sharp chang and a blade chocked down through the metal. Then another.

  "You little bastard," Hannah said. Keeping one hand on the wheel, she dug with the other down under her seat, feeling around in the dark.

  Brand stared, confused. "Lose something?"

  "Hoping to... find something," Hannah gasped. "This... is the Accord-mobile, remember? Case the kaka hits the fan they... probably keep a little some... ah, here we..." She snapped an object from a bracket under the seat, nodded approvingly and thrust it into Brand's hands. Brand whistled. "That's a Daisy-Steiner 880-II riot gun," she told him. "More of a cannon, really, fully capable of taking the head off the Hulk." She leaned over and with a grunt and a tug slid open Brand's door. "Now get rid of the goddammed hitch-hiker."

  "What?" Brand asked, nonplussed. "You know I'm no good with these things. Can't you do it?"

  Another blade slammed through the roof. As it did, Hannah took a corner, narrowly avoiding a group of Japanese tourists, whose cameras, when they picked themselves up, clicked in their wake. "I'm a little busy, Brainiac."

  "But why outside? Why can't I just shoot it through the roof?"

  "Because discharging this thing inside will take YOUR bloody head off, idiot. Just aim the thing vaguely in its direction and you'll be fine. Oh, and don't forget to steady yourself against the recoil."

  Steady myself against the-? Brand thought as he reluctantly rose to the door. How the hell am I supposed to do that when I'm hanging off a sodding speeding van? But he supposed he had to try. Hooking a heel against the base of the doorframe, he leaned out as far as he could and craned his neck, the wind whipping at his hair. The ripper was just visible on the roof, but there was no clear line of sight. There was also no choice. He had to go up. Cursing, Brand heaved himself up onto the front of the van, the 880-II tucked between chin and chest, his only comfort the fact that the ripper was too busy ripping its way inside to have noticed him. Rising and rocking from foot to foot to compensate for the rolling of the van, he planted himself as firmly as he could on his slippery white foundation and hefted the Daisy-Steiner before him, priming it with a loud ka-chak.

  The ripper noticed he was there, and Brand almost soiled himself when it snapped its attention towards him. But the thing had a blade half-in, half-out of the armoured metal of the roof, and that bought him maybe a second. Then the blade was freed, the ripper screeched and leapt, and Brand fired without thinking. There was a very loud boom.

  His ears ringing, nose bleeding, and coccyx throbbing, Brand realised that he was flat on his arse without a clue how he'd got there. But then the blood dripping from the stock of the 880-II filled in the gap. The recoil must have smashed the weapon into his face and whipped his feet out from under him. And it had plonked him down just at the front edge of the roof. The question now was - where was the ripper?

  Brand rose, head spinning, and again without thinking waved to the people watching him. He suddenly realised that on both sides of the road shoppers stood open-mouthed, their gaze shifting between him and the twitching, mangled shape of a ripper that adorned the roof of a nearby black cab. My God, was this Oxford Street? Had he just blown away a ripper in full view of Oxford Street?

  It's only a movie, he thought as he slipped sheepishly into his seat. It's called... er... Spiders On A Van. Amazing what you can do with CGI these days.

  Hannah, meanwhile, thoroughly pissed by the traffic, mounted the pavement and accelerated forward, their unwanted audience flattening up against windows and continuing to gape as she screeched by. As she slewed into a side street, one even shouted for an autograph.

  Brand reckoned they had to be near Stable Mews, now. But the inner city streets had become a dizzying warren once again, and when Hannah asked him, he wasn't quite sure which way to...

  They approached a junction.

  "Right or left," Hannah debated with herself quickly. "Right or left." Then she spotted the Dead End sign to the right and chose left. "Times like this I could do with Verse," Hannah declared.

  Brand supported himself against the roof again as the van swung round and almost tipped with the precarious acuteness of the turn. "He probably didn't know London any better than you do!" he shouted over the screeching of rubber. "Oh, shit... sorry."

  Hannah smiled grimly, her arms tense on the wheel, manoeuvring quickly up and down. "Don't bet on it, Brainiac. He played The Getaway more times than I care to remember."

  Brand had no idea what Hannah was talking about, but had no time to delve deeper. His eyes continued to frantically scan the rearview mirrors. "Two more!" he shouted. "Six o'clock. Seven!"

  "Got 'em."

  Hannah slammed her foot on the brake and swung the wheel hard to the right, sending the van into a controlled skid before a handbrake turn. Tyres smoked and left rubber burns that look
ed like black rainbows. As it described a full circle the rear axle of the van ploughed into one of the rippers about to make a leap and sent it smashing into a brick wall with a mortar-loosening thud. The other - the one at six o'clock that had been behind them - scrunched beneath the wheels as Hannah gunned the engine and ploughed straight ahead across the junction she had deliberated on a moment before, demolishing the sign that had deterred her. For good measure she also took out a sandwich board for some TV presenter turned celebrity chef's latest eatery, leaving the people who had been studying it standing indignant with hands on hips. "Looks like it's right, after all," she declared.

  "Out of the way," Brand urged the desperately scattering and waving figures in front of them, shoppers in what looked like quite an exclusive street. Most - they were mainly women, probably footballers' wives and girlfriends or some such - had sufficient nouse to do so without being warned, but others simply stared at the dirty and encroaching white van as if Del Trotter had just honked his airhorn and asked for a shag. Brand swept his arm across the windscreen. "Please... get out of the-"

  "Brand, the hand," Hannah protested, shoving it away while at the same time trying to peer around it.

  "I'm trying to-"

  "I know what you're trying to do, but take a look behind us, Brainiac," Hannah interrupted emphatically. She flicked her eyes on and off the mirror. "If we flatten these idiots first we might actually be doing them a favour."

  The wing mirror had gone in the collision with the signs so Brand leaned out of the window and looked back instead. They were halfway down the long shopping street, pedestrianised, tree-planted, and, as he'd thought, lined with the kind of stores that even on the salary Kostabi paid, Brand doubted he could afford had he saved for a year. He hoped that the people who had been casually strolling about its heady environs a moment before were, in fact, rich enough to afford them, because by the looks of things they were very soon probably going to need one mother of a medical plan.