The familiar rose up from the corpse with strands of Joel’s head hanging out from between its teeth. It had taken off the features like a mask, leaving a mess of blood and jerking muscle. In the open hole of Joel’s mouth the root of his tongue flapped and spurted, past speaking sorrow.
Burgess didn’t care how he appeared to the world. The race was everything: a victory was a victory however it was won. And Jones had cheated after all.
“Here!” he yelled to the familiar. “Heel!”
It turned its blood-strung face to him.
“Come here,” Burgess ordered it.
They were only a few yards apart: a few strides to the line and the race was won.
“Run to me!” Burgess screeched. “Run! Run! Run!”
The familiar was weary, but it knew its master’s voice. It loped towards the line, blindly following Burgess’ calls.
Four paces. Three — And Kinderman ran past it to the line. Short-sighted.
Kinderman, a pace ahead of Voight, took the race without knowing the victory he had won, without even seeing the horrors that were sprawled at his feet.
There were no cheers as he passed the line. No congratulations.
The air around the steps seemed to darken, and an unseasonal frost appeared in the air.
Shaking his head apologetically, Burgess fell to his knees. “Our Father, who wert in Heaven, unhallowed be thy name —”
Such an old trick. Such a naïve response.
The crowd began to back away. Some people were already running. Children, knowing the nature of the dark having been so recently touched by it, were the least troubled. They took their parents’ hands and led them away from the spot like lambs, telling them not to look behind them, and their parents half-remembered the womb, the first tunnel, the first aching exit from a hallowed place, the first terrible temptation to look behind and die. Remembering, they went with their children.
Only Kinderman seemed untouched. He sat on the steps and cleaned his glasses, smiling to have won, indifferent to the chill.
Burgess, knowing his prayers were insufficient, turned tail and disappeared into the Palace of Westminster.
The familiar, deserted, relinquished all claim to human appearance and became itself. Insolid, insipid, it spat out the foul-tasting flesh of Joel Jones. Half chewed, the runner’s face lay on the gravel beside his body. The familiar folded itself into the air and went back to the Circle it called home.
It was stale in the corridors of power: no life, no help.
Burgess was out of condition, and his running soon became a walk. A steady step along the gloom-panelled corridors, his feet almost silent on the well trodden carpet.
He didn’t quite know what to do. Clearly he would be blamed for his failure to plan against all eventualities, but he was confident he could argue his way out of that. He would give them whatever they required as recompense for his lack of foresight. An ear, a foot; he had nothing to lose but flesh and blood.
But he had to plan his defence carefully, because they hated bad logic. It was more than his life was worth to come before them with half-formed excuses.
There was a chill behind him; he knew what it was. Hell had followed him along these silent corridors, even into the very womb of democracy. He would survive though, as long as he didn’t turn round: as long as he kept his eyes on the floor, or on his thumbless hands, no harm would come to him. That was one of the first lessons one learnt, dealing with the gulfs.
There was a frost in the air. Burgess’ breath was visible in front of him, and his head was aching with cold.
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely to his pursuer.
The voice that came back to him was milder than he’d expected.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“No,” said Burgess, taking confidence from its conciliatory tone. “It was an error and I am contrite. I overlooked Kinderman.”
“That was a mistake. We all make them,” said Hell. “Still, in another hundred years, we’ll try again. Democracy is still a new cult: It’s not lost its superficial glamour yet. We’ll give it another century, and have the best of them then.”