The Speed of Darkness by Catherine Fisher

Author:Catherine Fisher [Fisher, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Children's
Published: 2016-02-11T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

After Katra Simba, Venn travelled obsessively. Cities, rainforests, the Greenland interior – he spent years on the road.

Once in Rome, I came across him on the Janiculum, gazing down at the domes and houses.

‘The Eternal City,’ I said, foolishly.

He looked at me as if I was a stranger. ‘If there only was such a thing,’ he said.

Jean Lamartine, The Strange Life of Oberon Venn

The city was a nightmare to drive through.

Every street was angled, every corner warped. The roads buckled and ran over dangerous, filmy places that Sarah was terrified the car would fall right through. The noise of the engine seemed hideously loud in the silence, and as they sped under walls and the empty houses she imagined hundreds of Januses hurrying to windows to watch them pass.

She shook her head. Already her arms ached from gripping the wheel too tightly.

Relax.

Concentrate!

Venn had the glass gun in his hand; he watched the streets intently.

‘He must know,’ she muttered.

‘Maybe he doesn’t care.’

She flung him a glance. ‘He will when he realizes where we’re going. And why.’

Grim, Venn nodded. ‘Left here. Left!’

They passed deserted crossroads. Vast office blocks and shops, underpasses and road bridges confused her. She had never known London well; it was Venn who navigated, from memory and guesswork, and she was amazed at how the ancient ways of the city still existed, the roads and thoroughfares that might have been here for centuries.

She spared him a glance. ‘You must find this strange.’

‘The silence is. In my time over six million people are crammed into this city. A swarming ant heap. All those lives, all those plans and dreams. Just gone.’

She slowed at a junction. They were back near the river. ‘Where now?’

‘Westminster Bridge. Straight ahead. If it’s still there.’

She saw him searching for landmarks. ‘Where’s Big Ben?’

‘Built into the tower. Sometimes you hear it strike in there, at odd hours.’

They came to the bridge. It had been stretched to over a mile long and was barely wider now than the car. The lampposts were black, elongated slices of metal; each took half a minute to pass.

‘This part has been pulled a long way.’ Sarah bumped the car over debris. ‘The warping is different in different places. Have you noticed?’

He nodded. ‘Maybe if we can get far enough things will be more normal. Out of London.’ He looked back. High and unsteady on the horizon, the tower rose like a nightmare silhouette, a child’s interrupted game of stacked pieces. Rain blurred its outline. Cloud streamed from its top. ‘I hate leaving Jake in there.’

‘No choice.’

‘If anything happens, David will.’

‘It won’t. Janus will hold him as a hostage, and he’ll be kept alive, I’m sure.’ But she wasn’t sure, and both of them knew it.

Suddenly the world convulsed. Sarah swore, slammed the wheel sideways, the car skewing along the pavement, shearing the parapet, and then along the façade of a building, sparks scorching up.

The road buckled under them. She jammed on the brakes but the car didn’t stop; for a

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