Гарт Никс – Mister Monday (страница 10)
“Yes.”
“Leaf sent me an e-mail to give to you,” she said, handing him a folded piece of paper. Arthur took it, ignoring the catcalls from the boys behind her.
“Ignore those mutants,” the girl said in a loud voice. She smiled and ran back to join her particular clique of tall, bored-looking girls.
Arthur put the paper in his pocket and left the gym, his face burning. He wasn’t sure what made him more embarrassed: getting told to go and play tiddlywinks by Weightman or getting a note from a girl in full view of everyone else.
He took refuge in the library. After explaining to the librarian that he was excused from gym and showing her his note, he took a good look around, then decided to sit at one of the desks on the second floor, next to a window that overlooked the front of the school and the street.
The first thing he did was build some walls on the desk out of large reference books, to make a private cubbyhole. Unless someone came up and looked over his shoulder, nobody would be able to see what he was reading.
Then he took the Key and the Atlas from his bag and laid them down with Leaf’s note on the desk. As he did so, he caught the flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked out the window and, as he had more than half expected, there were the dog-faces. Sliding out from between parked cars and trees. Slinking forward to gaze up at his window. They knew exactly where he was.
Arthur had hoped he would feel more secure if he could actually see them. That he would feel braver for having exposed himself at the window. But he didn’t. He shivered as they congregated into a mob, all of them staring wordlessly up at him. So far, none had shown wings like the one that had flown to his window the night before. But perhaps that was only a matter of time.
Forcing himself to look away, he imagined that he was a white mouse tearing its gaze away from a hooded cobra. That having done so, he would be able to escape.
He felt a very strong desire to flee into the deeper parts of the library, to hide between the stacks of comforting books. But that wouldn’t help, he knew. At least here he knew where the dog-faces were. What they were was another question, one of the many Arthur was making into a mental list.
Arthur unfolded the print out of Leaf’s e-mail and read:
From: raprepteam20biohaz.gov
Hi Allie
This is me, Leaf. can you pass this message on to arthur penhaligon? boy who flaked on the run last Monday? kind of thin + pale, about ed’s height hair like gary krag v. important he gets this. gotta run. thanx
Leaf
hi art
sorry we didn’t c u at hospital. ed got sick tues. nite, and then mum + dad did + aunt mango (not real name). i’m not sick, tho our house is quarantined. many doctors cops all over our place, in biohazard suitz, v. scary pigface. They think new flu and shots DON’T WORK. no one really, really sick yet but when I go near ed or the others I smell the same revolto smell that the DOG_FACED GUYS had like they’re connected, you know but the doctors can’t smell it they’re in suits and neither can ed or parents, tho so much snot coming out that;s no surprise. docs have machine that smells 4 them, and it says e’thing OK when obviously not. no one believes me.
i think the virus from dog-faces I REALLY HOPE you can see them you have to work it out I’M DEPENDING ON YOU.
feds cut off net and phone I think afraid of big panic. this from one of the docs palmtops which I STOLE and they’ll figure it out real soon.
im afraid
Arthur stared at the last words for a few seconds:
He shivered, folded the print-out and put it back in his pocket. He felt his breathing catch again and concentrated on a steady, slow rhythm. Breathe in slowly, hold it, breathe out slowly. But all the time his mind was racing. This was even worse than he thought.
All the fears he had managed to keep under control were threatening to break free and send him into total panic. The old fear of a new outbreak. And a new fear, of the dog-faces and Mister Monday, and even of the Key itself.
Why had he been given the Key… and the Atlas? Who… or what… were Mister Monday and the dog-faces? Were they really connected to this sudden outbreak of drug-resistant influenza? Was it an outbreak? Maybe only Ed and Leaf’s family was affected…
Arthur looked out the window at the dog-faces again and accidentally touched the Key and the Atlas on the desk. As he did so, he felt a sharp electric shock and the Atlas flipped open with a bang, making him jump like a startled cat. As it had done before, the Atlas grew in size till it filled nearly all the desk space in between his rampart of books.
This time, the Atlas didn’t display a drawing of the House. Instead it rapidly sketched one of the dog-faces, though without the bowler hat, dirty shirt and black, old-fashioned suit. This one was wearing something like a sack, but there was no mistaking the face.
Words appeared next to the picture, written by some unseen hand. The words were in a strange alphabet that Arthur didn’t recognise, let alone have a chance of reading, but as the boy watched he saw that the earlier letters were changing into the normal alphabet and the words were rearranging themselves into English, though the type was still weird and old-fashioned. Every now and then a blot of ink would appear partway through a word, to be hastily wiped away. Then words stopped appearing, and Arthur started to read what was there.
The House was built from Nothing, and its foundations rest upon Nothing. Yet as Nothing is for ever and the House is but eternal, these foundations slowly sink into the Nothing from which the House was wrought, and Nothing so impinges upon the House. In the very deepest cellars, sinks and oubliettes of the House, it is possible to draw upon Nothing and shape it with one’s thought, should such thought be strong enough. Forbidden in custom, if not in law, it is too often essayed by those who should know better, though it is not the high treason of treating with the Nithlings, those self-willed things that occasionally emerge from Nothing, with scant regard for Time or reason.
A typical shaping of Nothing is the Fetcher, as illustrated. A Fetcher is a creature of very low degree, usually fashioned for a particular purpose. Though it is contrary to the Original Law, these creatures are now often employed in menial tasks beyond the House itself, in the Secondary Realms, for they are extremely durable and are less inimical to mortal life than most creatures of Nothing (or indeed those of higher orders from within the House). However, they are constrained by certain strictures, such as an inability to cross thresholds uninvited, and may be easily dispelled by salt or numerous other petty magics.
Perhaps one in a million Fetchers may find or be granted enlightenment beyond its station, and so gain employment in the House. For the most part, when their task is done, they are returned to the primordial Nothing from whence they came.
Fetchers should never be issued with wings or weapons, and must at all times be given clear direction.
Arthur thought again of that hideous face at the window, pressed against the glass, its wings fluttering furiously behind it. Somebody had ignored the advice about not giving Fetchers wings. Arthur would not be surprised if the ones waiting outside had weapons as well, though he didn’t want to think about what kind of weapons they might be given.
Arthur tried to turn the page of the Atlas to see if there was any more information, but the page wouldn’t turn. There were lots of other pages in the book, but they might as well have all been glued into a single mass. Arthur couldn’t even get his fingernail between the leaves of paper.
He gave up and looked out the window again and was surprised to see that the Fetchers had moved in the short space of time he’d been looking at the Atlas. They had formed into a ring on the road and were all looking up. A couple of cars had stopped because of them, but it was obvious the drivers couldn’t really see what was in their way. Arthur could distantly hear one of them shouting, the angry words faint through the double glazing, “Get that heap of junk outta here! I haven’t got all day!”
The Fetchers gazed up at the sky. Arthur looked too but didn’t see anything. Part of him didn’t want to see, because the fear was rising in him.
He kept looking, until an intense white light flashed just above the ring. Arthur shut his eyes and shielded his face. When he looked again, black spots danced everywhere in his vision and it took a few seconds for them to clear.
The empty space in the middle of the ring was no longer empty. A man had appeared there. Or not really a man, since he had huge feathery wings spreading from his shoulders. Arthur kept blinking, trying to focus. The wings were sort of white, but dappled with something dark and unpleasant-looking. Then they folded up behind the apparition’s back and in an instant were gone, leaving only a very handsome, tall man of about thirty. He was dressed in a white shirt with chin-scraping collar points, a red necktie, a gold waistcoat under a bottle-green coat, and tan pantaloons over glossy brown boots – an ensemble that had not been in fashion for more than a hundred and fifty years.