Black Monster

Yesterday I went to my first ever writers retreat, a one day affair run by [Writing Space Stroud](http://writingspacestroud.wordpress.com/). It was held at the [Stroud Valley Artspace](http://www.sva.org.uk/) which is a little tucked away set of studios and performance space. I arrive about 10 minutes early in the fear of not being able to locate it but it turned out to be the place [I had performed poetry for the Stroud Site Festival](http://turquoise.monsters.wigglypets.co.uk/?p=840).

The lady who was running it was setting out books in a smallish room set out with tables including the lovely refreshments in the photos. There were home baked cookies and cakes as well including a dairy and gluten free one which made me very happy.

After being made welcome I made a bee line for a purple table and set up my laptop. Others began arriving and we had a brief bout of introductions and hot drink pouring before we settled down to write. Before hand we had been sent forms to fill in, what we were looking to get out of the retreat and goal setting etc… as I am doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) my goals were simply to boost my word count and maybe to start planning the third novel of The Godex Trilogy. Now I broke the 50, 000 word barrier a while ago but am looking to do 90, 000 words before the end of November so I set my self a minimum of 5000 words and maybe a good stab at getting 10, 000 which is what I think is actually my physical limit for day.

I managed 8627 words at the retreat, got to chat to other local writers and had constant tea and coffee. There was impromptu stretching during the lunch hour which was very relaxing. I got to look at lots of different books on writing styles and methods. There was no reading out of work or anything like that we all just got on with our projects without the distractions of children and the internet. I even put my phone in the special phone box so that I wouldn’t be tempted. I was so energised by the friendly atmosphere that when I got home my husband cooked me dinner, put a film on for the kids and banned them from talking to me so that I could finish off the 10, 000 before I eat.

A really good thing is that there is a section on the forms to help keep the momentum up after the retreat which I shall be attempting 🙂

The retreat cost £20 which was basically cost price. I thought it was great and am hoping to do another one or send my husband on one for his novel, people were writing a complete mix from poetry to PhD proposals. I personally am now on over 70, 000 words for my novel and am excited at the prospect of being this close to a target I thought pretty much impossible at the beginning of the month with all the other things I had booked to do!

It was unsuprisingly drizzling again when Emma emerged from a small green door in the side of a hospital. The tunnel network The Arcetect had set up was fantastic, he maintained he had worked with what was there but others had told her they had seen his mark carved into the stone work at the deepest levels. She wondered how old he was. She knew he’d lived centuries – surely that was enough for anyone?

The Masters were the stuff of legend, she wished they had stayed there. And now she was face with the fact that she had to continue with a treatment that would slow her age and he didn’t even know by how much! He’d said that humans had been artificially capped anyway and that lifespans should have been a magnitude longer. She gathered he ment hundreds of years rather than tens. She was suspiscous though and somehow thought it unlikely that to save her he would have to do this particular treatment.

When she had asked why the national health service didn’t have such treatments he had chuckled sadly. ‘I ruuun as many groups as I can too get treatmentsss tooo peeeeople but there are those working against or counter to me.’

She wondered why he cared so for humans, most people would have run from him on sight and others would have tried to kill him or take him off for experiments. She snorted at that thought and then checked herself, there were girls dying becuase one of his sort was out there feeding their blood to something. All sorts of things had occured to her, genetically engineered monsters belonging to cheaply dubbed films put on in the middle of the night but none of it jelled. There had to be a reason to make a monster and a blood sucking monster didn’t strick her as very bio-weapony if it had to be fed the victims.

Something to grow more Masters? That was a possibility she had heard the Arcetet talking to one of the scientists, he’d asked how the cloning was going, maybe it was that? Or maybe that was just the stem cells to treat belinda.

She’d been out of it for a good 18 hrs with the treatment and the uncouncousnous had been anything but refreshing but she didn’t feel as tired as she had been. He’d asked her if she’d started shaking when tired, she had nodded, she had assumed everyone did that when they got past 26 – the age you were supposed to start healing slower.

Her phone started to trill with messages from various places, she didn’t get it out the drizzle was getting heavier, she stopped at a bus stop to re-orientate herself and set off once more. Food would be good, a hunger gnawed at her and he’d warned her her metabolism would be increased and need more food for a while.

She slunk into an Echo Pizza, it was moderately busy and was warm though the chairs were badly designed metal tubbing that numbed your bum. She ordered and sat down. She could have eaten with them lot at the lab but it tended to be heavy on the sea food and she wasn’t in the mood. The first message was from her sister about her mothers birthday, she ignored it, the second one was from Super informing her that her wishes had been carried out, then one from some telesales robot which was annoying, then there was the kids asking if she had any news, then Pete saying that the drugs people were perplexed by her sample and were demanding to know where it came from before they would release the results as it was causing a few problems on the streets with people having manias, then it was the Super again demanding to know where she was and then to her suprise there was the old professor asking her to meet up with him, lastly there was a confirmation that the girl had been in the alley and that her boyfriend had identified an earring. There was something about him having to go to hospital but she couldn’t quiet follow what had happened.

Her pizza arrive, warm and crisp and soggy with molten cheese, she breathed in the aroma of the basil and tomato and then began to eat it, savouring it. The shit would hit the fan soon she was sure of it.

Her mind mulled it all over, what had they been stealing from the labs and factories? Stuff to build their monster but why? Why build a monster? Had they gone religous? Was she infact dealing with some nutty cult of weird aquatic aliens? The goose bumps rose on her arms.

She jumped when the Pizza guy asked if she wanted pepper, she waved him away irratably and then paused in her mastication, they wouldn’t ask that when you were already half way through eating would they. She resumed chewing so as not to draw attention and then scoped the place out trying only to use her periferial vision, it made her head quake slightly in rememberance of the headache.

There was a guy behind her who was not reading his news paper, she could see his reflection in the soft drinks cabinate and another guy dressed in the same colours as the staff but not actually in their uniform, it had been he who’d offered the pepper. She pretended to put her phone away but sent an alert by touch alone and felt the reasurring vibration of the phone confirming it had sent it. She finished her pizza, saw the blues and twos car go past blasting the streets with its sound but just a short blast. That was her ride. She stood and tried not to repsond to the fact that they two men tensed and readied themselves.

She calmly walked out of the resturant pass them, and into the wet miserable street. They thought her on her own so the followed just slightly lagging behind, she waited until she was out of the shop window view and then rain for the waiting police car. A shot rang in the city streets, the officer holding open the door for her swore and pandamonium broke out.

Emma awoke with a headache the size of a small planet, it thumped and pulsed and flashed steely knives, she groaned or at least her body tried too, a rasp of air was all that escaped. Her throat felt raw. It tasted worse. Her eyes were filming but a couple of gritty blinks and she could see again. She wished she couldn’t her head was so bad.

‘Ahhhh the patieeent iss awake!’ came the strange silibance that haunted her dreams on stormy nights.

She tried to say Master, but it came out as a strangeled gurgle. ‘Doo not tryyy to talk yet, here is waaater.’ water was expertly fed to her, it was a releif her throat felt too big like it was crushing itself from the outside. With his help she sat up, the pressure of the headache made her want to vomit. ‘Heead ache?’ he asked. She nodded and then regretted it. She felt a cool spray on her neck and then the pull of an injection, a tiny thing unlike the monster she recoglected through the stupors of uncouncousness.

The pain began to recede, faster and better and more completely than anything she’d ever taken prescription or over the counter. ‘wha wa tha?’ evidently her throat still needed some soothing though she couldn’t feel the pain of it anymore.

‘It’s somethiiing I’veee beeen workingggg on! You like it?’ He was she realised smiling at her. His mouth was full of pointed teeth, just subtly different from a normal persons, he would almost fit in, almost.

She cricked her neck it made a statifying bang ‘it’s good she said,’ trying not to be amused at his look of horror. ‘But was that really necassary? I have lots of stuff to do and I don’t want the stupid treatments anyway!’ She was annoyed to realise she was actually balling her fists.

‘Whaat doo you thiink theeey are for?’ he asked mildly.

‘I don’t know, I’m some ginue pig in your exilia of life trails?’ It came out very harsh, he looked saddly down at her and stepped away.

‘Elixa of liffffe, eternal youth, liffffe everlasting, alwaysss an obsessiooon but not in the way you thinnnk.’ He shrugged. ‘Do you rememmmber how I fouuund youuu?’

‘Not really’ she confessed.

‘Aaah!’

‘It was a diving accident wasn’t it? I was on location, I’d found a site and.. ‘ she screwed her forehead in concentration, ‘there were fossils… I had submitted a paper on the area it suggested people had existed for longer than thought. It was all wrong though. You said you’d explain it all but you never have and I… I can’t remember.’

‘Youu are bright annnd unluckyyy, weee saw your draft paper but sooo diiid otherrss, by the time we got there youuu were floating in the caave brain dead, in aaa pluume of bloood. Thee site waas smasssshed.’ A dark sorrow etched itself into his face, she felt a chill in her stomache. ‘I rescuuued whaat I coould from the situuatiooooon. You.’

‘I am greatful but I don’t want to live for ever!’ she snapped in exasperation, she’d been dead? How was she here then? She knew they had resources but surely not that type of advanced medicine.

He sighed, ‘It was the only way to save you and the prooocess musst be completed, it isss alssso not lifffe everlasting’

‘What happens if it’s not completed?’ she asked a sudden coldness in her stomache.

‘Youuu start rejecttting thee bitsss of your braiin we had too grow back’ he said.

‘Oh’ She shivered and relised her mouth was still in the comical goldfish shape.

‘Nooow this Pete? Is he to be trussted?’ he asked out of the blue

‘There is a mole, but I think he is sweet, he is not the sort of man to destroy his own carefully amassed work.’ she puased and then glared at him.

He actually flushed slightly pink under the strange fatty skin of his. It was wrinkled but is was like someone had pushed a slightly molten pat of butter around. Ripples was more the word she decided.

‘I thought it wouuuld bee prudent to find whyyy you’d come here, I knowww you haate it’ he shrugged and wandered over to the infernal coffee machine. ‘We should disguess in the tank – youuu neeed a bouncy treeatment anyyway.’ He began stripping, she never could get used to this, but she removed the hospital gown she hadn’t realised she was wearing.

Mugs in hand they climbed the steps at the edge of the tank, it was not swimming pool water, is was salty and plants grew in the depths, little fishes came to nibble at them, she was about to comment on it being a giant fish spar but throught better of it. She felt very aware of the fact she was naked, in a pool with a man with webbed fingers. What was he? She knew it was connected to the site she had found but the whole thing was hazy, most of her notes and things had disappeared also and the journal mysteriously had lost her draft she’d sent them.

Her breasts were oddly boyant in the water, she found she was curious as to weather he had human genitial, this was not the first time she’d found herself in one of these tanks with him either, prudish britishness always got the better of her when she actually had a chance to find out.

He sipped his coffee, ‘aahhh,’ he murmured and placed it on the side of the tank, then he flipped himself over and under the surface with bearly a ripple. She wondered at this she’d been in the desert with him for weeks and he seemed ok, but any chance he got he was in the water.

‘The residuee isss how you feared,’ he said as his head popped above the water line, she noticed his nostrils slites closed off whilst he was in the water. ‘Thisss makesss thingsss bad.’

She nodded, ‘I suspect the old professor knows more than he is saying,’ she said.

‘Professor Atkin? He may dooo, I know him, he had to be resued once. He is not a muuuurderer though, he willll kill but nooot a muuurderer.’ She nodded.

‘The misssing girlsss are being used to feeed something, I think I knowww what buuut it can not beee. Anndd blood is bad news, it will make it ssssick’ she waited but he was not going to tell her what the something was. ‘This Christine? She had tech on her?’

Emma nodded ‘but not her phone and latitude will only work if her computer gets opened up or switched on, you know the drill.’ He flared his nostrils in affirmation.

‘I have a device for you, that wiiiill help with that,’ She sat up on her ledge in excitement barely concous of exposing herself.

‘You do?’

He nodded, ‘Nooow is theere anyyything you need to telll me?’

She sighed, ‘Balinda seems to be loosing it’ she said tentitively half expecting him to errupt.

‘Ah yes B she is cracking, my treatmentssss are starrtinng to fail,’ he looked away from her and an easy image of exactly what he and Balinda were appeared in her mind. ‘But sooon, hopefullly sooon I will perfect the stem cell treatment ssshe neeeds, until then be kind.’

‘The ceiling over the esculators is also cracking.’ she said.

His eyes went even wider than normal. ‘is water dripping?’ she nodded, he swore and began shouting orders at minions in the lab beyound. Once that was done he ordered her to swim and quietly drank his coffee.

It was 3 in the morning Rob was sniverling again the other two could hear him, Megan wasn’t quiet sure why she still had the boys around her place, she’d been spooked by the police womans words and Adele had phoned her and said she wouldn’t be around for a week or so. She knew what that ment but ignored it. Adele owned the place, Adele was married and she Megan was… well she wasn’t entirely sure what she was. The boys hadn’t pried and she wished that Christine would turn up.

It was horrible, sickening to think that she had disappeared between her and the station. None of them had gone to college, none of them to the various part time jobs they had to subsadise living in London. They’d sat quietly drinking tea and hadn’t even had the energy to move onto the stock of harder stuff Megan had stashed about the place. Andre wasn’t asleep either he was laying too still like he thought it was a life or death thing. His eyes had been red rimmed.

He and Robert should have hated each other, she was sure that Andre had hated the other guy but now all any of them could think of was Christine. She didn’t even know the girl that well. They’d both been part of the origarmi club and she seemed nice, a bit frail in some ways but weren’t they all?

Megan gave up and went for a midnight shower. She let the water hit her skin, hot and fast and hard, maybe it would blast away the guilt she felt. She began crying, it was raw and they burned her scualding hotter than the steaming water. She stepped out to a room smoothered in steam, her skin felt tingly. She wiped away the condensation from her mirror and stared into her almonds eyes, they looked back twany at her. She needed to find Christine, it was her fault!

Any way she looked at it it was her fault, if she had been busy the Christian would not have come to Ealing, if she had gone to meet her at the station or in one of the bars then she wouldn’t have gone through the ally way – if she had just thought to say don’t use the ally way or if she had alerted someone of Christines failed appearence instead of thinkng the girl had stood her up.

She bowed her self over the sink looked up and glared at her reflection then she screeched and hit the rim of her sink with the flat palms of her hands. She hastily wrapped the towel around herself as she hard the clatter of feet from the boys. ‘I’m sorry,’ she called ‘I’m ok,’

She heard muffeled replies and forced herself to get dressed once more, her parjarmers were damp. She shivered. Exited the room, Rob was waiting for her ‘Edwins making coffee for us’ he said jestering with his eyebrows at the other room. She nodded slightly embarrassed and followed him. The coffee did smell good and she knew she wasn’t going to sleep.

‘I feel so helpless!’ she hissed at Rob.

His jaw was clenched he nodded a mute response. His eyes were red it enhanced their green.

Edwine handed them the mugs and topped them up with the cheap fortified wine and cream mix he’d found in the fridge. They sipped in silence.

‘I want to go and look for her,’ Rob said, Megan nodded.

‘I’ll go with you’ Edwin said automatically.

‘You can’t you need to stay with Megan’ the other boy blushed at his supposed neglect.

‘No he doesn’t I’m coming too – I can’t take being here, helpless like this.’ the boys hesitated looked at each other an then nodded.

‘Ok but we are staying together in a three – non of that horror movie splitting up business’ the others nodded and then they all laughed, it was subdued and embarrassed but it eased the tension.

‘Bit silly the way they alwasy do that isn’t it?’ Robert said.

The others nodded. The boys were already dressed they had no other clothing with them Megan didn’t want to point out how long they had been in them. It was her fault after all. She hurried off to get changed re-remerging 10 minutes later in faded green skinny fit jeans and a fluffy brown jumper with impractically big sleeves.

The boys grabbed their coats, Megan grabbed her shiny red wallet and pushed maroon boots onto her feet, they were solid sole and not the softer boots that were fashionable – she found she wore those out just using them as slippers.

The night was drizzling again, it seemed to have not stopped for weeks, it had been sunny for a brief two hour spell earlier on in the day but the ground and everything was just so sodden it seemed so bleak.

‘Which way to the ally way?’ Rob asked.

‘This way’ Megan said pushing past both of them and leading them down a side street, her gold earrings glinted in the street lights, she’d put them back in automatically as part of her getting dressed routine, now she wondered what she could have been thinking.

The ally was cordened off with police tape, a young guy in uniform about their age stood guard. ‘Can’t go through here I’m afraid’ he said.

They paused unsure of what to do, of course the area was closed down for forensics, Megan looked at the rain washed pavement and thought secretly to herself that it would be a pointless hunt in the rain, she glanced out of the corner of her eye at Rob, he seemed to be shaking.

It was Edwin who spoke. ‘We’re Christines friends, Robs her boyfriend, we were just wondering if there was any news?’

The guy pulled his lips back slightly in a sympathetic non-smile. ‘I’m afraid not, you’d be better off going to the station for information though.’ Another officer appeared with a cup of coffee in a styrofoam cup, Megan thought how old skool it was not to be a large branded capped thing.

‘What are you lot up to?’ asked the other officer.

‘They’re the missing girls friends thought we might know something’ The older man looked at them shrewdly, decided that this was the truth and shock his head in a consolitary kind of way. Then he paused. ‘Is one of you Robert?’ he asked.

Rob stepped forward, ‘I am!’ he really was shaking Megan noted.

‘Could you come and look at something for me?’ the boy paled and the officer seemed to realise his mistake, ‘it’s just an earing.’

‘Ok’ Rob said. They went to the car and a bag was produced, the sort you bought beads in. Megan squinted to see it in the half light it was a little flute. ‘Christine’ Rob whispered and then he was pitching over, Megan saw him start to go and tried to catch him but he was a tall guy.

‘Shit Alfie Catch him!’ cried the cop. There was a blast of static as an ambulance was called via radio.

‘It’s her’s’ Megan said into the strange strangled silence.

Professor Atkins stood infront of the stick thin man who seemed to be made all of joints jutting out at angles. He looked so young probably the same age as his grandson. It made it more annoying to think that he once looked like that himself though not with the huge whole in his ears – did the boy realise how much the things already stuck out? Emphasising was not a good idea.

‘Floppys?’ he said supprised looking at the black flat plastic square in his hand. ‘No wonder the front desk couldn’t help you! I don’t think the college has the equipment to deal with this.’ The old mans shoulders slumped, he wasn’t quiet sure why it seemed so important but something about the girls wounds had reminded him of what he’d found in the Orical of the Dead. And most of that was on the floppies, they had destroyed his journals but they couldn’t erase his memory nor the information he’d gleaned from others who had not been caught at the site.

‘What’s on them?’ the boy asked.

‘Archeological stuff, field notes and things,’ he said.

‘Hmmm and there your only copy?’ the boy had not made eye contact with him once.

‘yes it was the back up.’ the professor blushed – how many times did he rant at students about making sure you had multiple back-ups

‘Ah! I see,’ he sighed =, it was a sort of whistly sound. ‘I can’t officially do anything but I have this mate,’ the professor groaned.

‘No not like that!’ the boy suddenly beaned a huge geniun smile. ‘He belongs to this place called a Hack Space a sort of community that have lumped resources to get equipment and things. He’s been trying to get me to go along and I think this sort of thing might be right up their street. It’s a bit before my time to be honest – you need a data archeologist!’ The professor looked at him a little vacantly trying to catch up with the line of logic.

‘Erm, you will be careful with it wont you?’ he shouldn’t really entrust it to this kid but he was at a loss as to what else to do, he supposed he could just hand it over to the young officer but he didn’t know if she could really be trusted nor if she would have access to the sorts of resources needed to read the date.

‘Of course! Now I think reading the data off of them shouldn’t be that hard – someone is bound to have a device to do that but flopies were really bad for data decay and that I don’t know much about but I’m sure one of Eds friends will.’ The boy was enthusiastic about the project, the anticipation was almost visible.

‘Ok then’ he said making the hard decission, he handed over a box of floppies only hesitating slightly. ‘When do you think you’ll have some results for me?’

‘Well I’ll tag along with him tonight – it’s their social, allowed to bring friends along night so I’ll ask but I’m sure how things work at these places. I’ll email you’ And Atkins knew he had been dismissed in a way that had not happened in about 30 years. Bizarly it cheered him up. He put his hand in his pocket and smoothed his gnarled fingers over the smoothe glass of the glitter ring, he wondered if he should show that to the boy, but it seemed ludicrous so he muttered thankyou and left.

He tottered back to his room of rock and bitter cheap coffee, a small study group was in there. They bearly looked up at him as he passed, a glance at the table showed false coloured images he recognised as Olympus Mons and other such geological things from Mars and Titian and a host of other bodies. He took a better look at the group and realised it was a half term school thing – he couldn’t remember the names for them. But it would be a mix of teenagers from various places taking advantage of some free advanced education in the hope that they could then get the scores and the financial backing to go to the University. They lost a lot of the candidates to other Universities but they tended to come back as post graduates or lecturers so it was a good investment.

One girl he noted in dungerees was intensly studying the images, she looked so serious it was comical on her delicate elf like face. She looked up at him suddenly blushed as if caught doing something wrong and reached for another image. ‘You may take one image home with you’ said the session leader, there was a mad scrabble and the girl he noted had somehow ended up with two. Which she disgreetly placed in her bag. She almost jumped when the session leader tapped her on the shoulder evidently thinking she was caught. ‘That was an amazing question you asked about wheather there was ice tectonics going on on that moon which year are you in?’

’10’ the girl said blushing furiously. The professor calculated that made her what? 14-15 evidently the session leader was taken aback too. ‘My Form tutor thought these sessions would be a good idea’ she said timidly.

‘Are you thinking of doing Earth Sciences when you go to Uni?’

This was the wrong question the girl looked ready to cry, ‘I… I don’t know if I can go, depends on money’ she shrugged in an attempt at nonchalance – it didn’t work.

‘Well there are grants and things I’m sure tutors and people will help you if you work hard. Are you doing any other sessions this week?’ The professor was impressed with the session leaders people skills the girls face had brightened up.

‘I’m going to the Archeology and Art History session tomorrow!’ she pipped, Atkins looked at the girl a bit more closely, she’d been in one of the summer school sessions he’d lead, she’d been a quiet stuttery person who only asked questions when you were next to her, no putting your hand up or joining in group discussions. But the questions she had asked were amazing.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow then!’ he said automatically. The girl looked frightened for a moment but then smiled shyly at him, ‘I loved your talk on Dionysis being a metaphor for Jesus in those paintings, I.. I.. I…m g..going to put it in a story.’

‘I’ll brings some papers along for you to read on the subject then’ he said it without really processes the conversation, it would be about half an hours work in his over crowded scedule but he needed to look at those papers anyway.

‘Thankyou,’ she said and scuttled off.

I dislike the concept of genres as boxes that stories have to be shoe horned into and think of them more as end members on phase diagrams with the story occupying some area between the points, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. No story is ever just one thing. So My story started out as a horror, with a beast that needed to be fed blood, an insane god from the old world but once I actually started writing it it became clear that it was fundimental a crime novel.

But when I thought about it – fearing that it would not be appropriate for the month of all things scary and spooky I thought upon the horror writers and films of my youth. alot of them could easily be described as crime fiction, Hannibal Lecter is pretty grusome and Stephen Kings Misery and the like are about dememted killers. Cereal killers and nut jobs appeared steadily through out the Dean Koontz and Clive Baker books. So the fact that my main protagonist is a cop is fine, it is I suppose the suspense that lends some crime the ability to be horror also.

Crime itself is not a straight forward genre, within it are cosy, medical, thriller, suspense and paranormal – and that was just off of the top of my head. I bet if I went and looked it up I would find an awful lot more.

So The Godex is a Crime and a Horror but it is also a Da Vinci Code-esk scifi thriller. I know people are divided on the Da Vinci Code I have personally only seen the film and it was like alot of films contianing secret societies, a class of fiction I tend to lap up. It wasn’t the best I’d seen but nor was it the worse.

But I digress my main point is that it is not actually a case of Crime vereses Horror but more of say Crime swollowing Horror and then being eaten from the inside out.

‘Hi Balinder,’ Emma said pushing past the woman. ‘Is there a reason the leak hasn’t been fixed?’

The pasty woman turned on her, ‘there is no leak! Don’t go stirring things up again, everytime you visit it’s the same, just becuase you get to work outside doesn’t mean the sun shines out of your back side.’ Balindar stormed around to a long desk – the kind you would expect to find in a hotel or data centre. She glared at Emma. ‘Do you have an appointment?’

Emma quirked her eyebrow, ‘No of course I don’t’

‘Then you are in for a long wait’ the woman smirked. Emma know that the other woman was pretty much stuck down here, it would drive her potty but Balinda had just gotten snarky well more snarky about things.

‘Let them know I am here at least.’ Emma snapped. Balinda made a meal of the processes, her bottle green suit looked like it had been boil washed, it was shiny and threadbare. She would have to bring up Balinda as a topic as well as the roof she tried to sigh internally but Balinda cuaght it and gave her a cheerfully malignant grin.

She fairy stepped to the door, a pink front door surrounded by a dark brown scolloped door frame. It seemed so out of place it was like a fairy land down here – a fairy land of monsters Emma thought. She tugged slightly on her braid, it helped wake her up the half light and the clammyness seemed to inlist a stupor in her. The woman was purposely taking an age, Emma realised she was grinding her teeth. Her breath seemed to mist around her even though it was not really that cold down here and compared to outside at this time of year it was probably *warm* it just never felt that way to her. She knew she mustn’t start shivering as soon as that started she wouldn’t stop.

Time always seemed surreal and slowed in this place and now it was grinding away at her nerve endings, an old fashioned clock, heavy in white and silver frame hung on the wall, tick… tick… tick… the sound was beginning to bore its way through her skull. Finally the door creaked open again Balinda had two red marks along her jaw line, someone had taken too many liberties and had caused a master to be angry. They would yellow or possibly even purple into little egg shaped bruises.

‘You may go straight through,’ the woman said with no expression, none at all. Emma carefully avoided catching eyes that were too downcast to catch anyway.

Beyond the door it was warmer, the air smelt of salt, the briney tinge you’d expect of the sea. It was darker too with blue rippling light swirling around the outline of another door way. She crossed the space jingerly knowing that boxes of equipment were often stored there. The entrance way led to a lab, a large tank of warmed water sloshed in the middle, she half expected the Master to arise from it but he didn’t. ‘Welcome’ he said in a strange nasal whisper. His skin was mottled and some how smooth with fat, a small jaw with a flat noise with slitey nostrals in it, eyes that were human but too large for his face and a broad forehead. He was long and gangly, you would be mistaken for thinking him a burns victim, so almost human. But there was an otherness there, she’d thought he was an alien, when they had first met, the fabled grey of Rosewell. He lifted one webbed hand and gestered to a fizzing and hissing machine in the corner. ‘Coffeee is almosssst reeeady’ strange clicks seemed to punctuate his words.

She bowed her head, ‘Master..’ she begain he waved the title away irratably, ‘I have been following up on the cult deaths of the girls and there is a problem…’ he turned his bright blue eyes on her, ‘there is a silica residue found at a series of lab and industrial brake ins. It looks like optronics to me.’ He stared at her and then blinked twice in rapid succession.

‘Inteeeresting,’ he hummed deep in his through and then spoke again, ‘but that isss not what you weeere supposeed to be inveeestigaatinnnnng.’ It was not an accussations just a statement. She sighed.

‘There is another issue with just how I found this out but it does appear to be linked to the girls disappearences’ again the strange humming and a few short curt nods. ‘But I have a girl who has only just vanished we are trying to track her down and there are patterns, the sort that occur when people are trying to avoid patterns.’ The nods again.

The coffee machine hissed a cluncked into a burbling life that made seem to have been dormant before hand, ‘ah coffeee, wee shall drink,’ He bustled about almost ignoring her. She became awear that others were in the room, silently working at benches, bent over petri dishes and microscopes. They came forward in a quietly chittering crowd to retrieve coffee from the machine. They were a mix of human and Master, all looked pale and seemed to have a hunger for the sun above their dark dank domain.

A chipped mug saying ‘Best GrandMa’ on it was thrust into her hand. And she was ushered to a cluster of delapodated sofas the other side of the tank. She sank gratefully into the slightly mouldering fabric and wrapped her fingers around the porcaline to warm them up.

‘You have been too long aaawayy’ he patted her as if she was a small child. He was strangly chasrasmatic and she always felt as if she was under some kind of spell when she spoke to him. He she knew was not just any Master he was the Arcetect, he was in charge and as far as she could tell was probably humanities best chance of survivial. He was also the reason she was still alive.

‘I…’ she begain trying desperatly to think of an excuess.

‘Shhh doo not lieee to mee’ He shrugged and laughed, it was a brittle sound that went suddenly supernova with all the lung capacity of a walrus. ‘Yooou hate it dooown heeer. Most oof usss do but you must nooot stayyy awayy soo long.’ He placed his coffee down on the plastic crate that was doubling as a coffee table and fumbled for something next to the seat. Emma saw the suringe come up and went to move but found smiling minions in white coats gently but firmly holding her in place, her cup was prised from her fingers. And her arm dosed in some strong smelling antisceptic fluid, its acridness filled her nostrils she felt the panic make that smell burn her. Rapid breathing and the inner fight, to struggle and risk more damage from a stabbed needle rather than a well timed injection.

A fire punched her in the arm, she felt wooze but was aware of them attatching a canuliar to her hand, she slumped a slurred ‘Bastards’ escaped as concousness fled.

The Detective stood at the entrance to the boarded up station, it had been turned into a tourist attraction. Winston Churchills old second world war hangout. They’d gotten bored of the police being called everytime they had a meeting so they made sure there was a reason for a people to be there. She queued with the crowed but showed a staff pass and was let through a back door, down she went through a too brightly lit tunnel. IT had been painted corn blue, and a slight waft of lavander just about covered the under laying mustyness. side tunnels had been bricked or boarded up, one alcove had been turned into a staff room for those organising the actual touristy bit, the people who thought that this was a museum with archives – well actually it was but that wasn’t all it was.

She felt chilled and clammy already. The harshness of the light did nothing to quell the feeling she was decending into the bowels of the earth. In truth non of the tunnels under London went too deep due to the clay layers but some of the tunnels were *old*, incredibly old for England anyway. They predated the city in some cases.

The underneith of the city was a warren of old rivers in huge tunnels brick built and moss covered, sewers which were larger tunnels than most people realised and also had a tendency to clog with fat of all things, she had been down here when the mole crews had come to clean them out. There were disused, cellars, hydro-power pumps left degectedly by a society that had found electricity. Old telecom tunnels, coal bunkers and purposely built passages from one celler to another. The abandoned rail way station at the entrance was not the only one, there were extra networks and even a secret canal or three. Add in the mantainance tunnels and London was not built on blue clay nor red clay nor any other type of clay, London was built on the waste pipes and foundations of forgotten Londons.

It was an arcetects nightmare.

It was the conspiracy theorists dream, sometimes they even got it right. There were tribes below ground starting with the dead in the crypts and moving on to the homeless who drowned in the storm drains instead of having a dry safe night.

Emma had nightmares about Head Quarters, the lighting had changed to older more yellowed light, it was gentler and cuased a soporific effect, she yawned. It felt like a dream, one were you walk an eternity into the pit. And she had the esculators to come yet. Turning a corner she clattered down a series of worn concrete steps. crudely made, you could see the shells in it were they had used a cheap mix, she’d been told it was a health and safty thing to add grip but the stairs were coroding in the moist atmosphere. It made a strange smell, like bad teeth.

Her nose began to run from the coolness, it should have started to get warmer now, but the damp besieged it. Time always seemed to slow here, the lighting had taken on a pink hue now and was getting dingier. She descended rumblings and groans transmitted themselves through her boots, the bowls of the city never slept, they always quivered, expectant of the effluent they were about to spout onto the walkways and concourses of the city above. Human vermin. A warren. Rats and other things from the humanities dark past lurked in the buy ways and overspills. A small mouse scuttled infront of her looking for tourist crumbs. If it went too far into the nest of tunnels it would be eaten by rodent brethren.

The whirring clank of the esculators was now audiable. She stepped out into a caven, it was a parody of a 1940’s shopping centre with stained glass and tiffany lamps, a fusion of styles from the first half of the 20th century. It smelt of mouth balls. It had a decaying granduer.

Ranks of esculators laboured down into the murky depths, black sillohettes with a sickly glow emminating from the top marked torch like lamps welded to the side of the groaning structure. Someone had thought that putting green lights underneith the metal panels would be a good idea. It was supposed to help you see your feet so they were mangeled in your descent but the green light spilt out from between the interlocking metal teeth of each step placing an erri throbbing glow.

It was medievial, it was steam punk, it was insane but she still stepped upon the creaking mass and began to descend. The light levels perceptively dimmed onces more, her eyes were starting to strain now. An incessent dripping cut through her thoughts, it was almost masked by the grinding and clanking of gears but was growing stronger and burning its way into her mind. Drip drip… splot, drip, drip, glug.

The knuckelds on her right hand showed white, her hand ached from holding on so tightly. She wanted to close her eyes by the virtigo it would cuase was not to be contemplated, losing her footing here, faintng or just letting go of the moving handrail could result in death. The machine shuddered and her knuckels went whiter. The eternity ended abruptly and she stepped off onto a gritty ill kept floor, things scuttled away from her.

The sensation of motion ceasing made her stumble slightly but she quickly recovered and bustled forward not wishing to stay in the gloom longer than nesacerry. The sound of drippling water was everywhere now and she stepped around the puddles, frowning, they should not be there, they hadn’t been last time she had visited. She looked to the cieling and cursed the light levels. A quick fumble in her bag produced a torch. The cieling was cracking, that was not good, that was so not good. Her breathing rate fasterned and her palms became slick. She moved onwards trying to ignore the press of the city above her.

And then she was in front of an old oak door, the sort with large black nails that have been cut and hammered in it. She pressed a crazed yellowed white plastic door bell next to it.

It creaked open and a woman with piles of curly hair looked at her as if she had just crawled out from under a rock. The woman was palid and slightly spotty. ‘Oh its you’ she said standing to one side to let Emma through.

The Professors name was Brain but no one ever called him that he was either Professor or Granddad, his wiry white hair refused to lay flat irratating him with the fact it made him look like an archytype or worse a sterotype, he paused with the saddening thought that most people wouldn’t know the difference. He’d gotten out the manuscript again and was looking at it under the microscope. If it was real, if… it could change the way people viewed the Mioans, it could unlock mysteries of the past, he felt a tear moisten his eye at the thought of a mystery he could not solve. His Edwin was his youngest grandchild and in many ways the most fragile, it had been a joy to find the boy could handle numbers and languages and he’d taken to the new fangled technology like something from a scifi film.

But the boy felt emotions too deeply, Brain knew what that felt like but he’d learned how to cope Edwin never had and he’d been sweet on this Christine for well over a year and now she was missing. Her having a boyfriend was one thing Edwin would have happily waited an eternity for her but her having disappeared like this, especially like this! He cursed the police woman for having filled his mind with the images of those poor cows.

He felt a chill, it was like the time he’d excavated a temple only to find a pit of sacrifices, little skeletons, so small, so somehow still recognisable, each a little helplessness offered to some god for some material gain. He’d felt the horror as he pieced together fragile skulls that looked at him accusingly, their juvinile bones did not preserve as well as adults, their ghosts seemed to cling to him. Such a waste, such a pain in his heart, little helpless things that had trusted the arms that held them. It made him sick and now someone was buttering young women. To him they were still kids, even if they’d had kids of their own they would still have been kids. The police woman was barely an adult in his eyes.

He rubbed his eyes, scrubbing away the hot tear and stood. Turning to the mass of folders and books strewn across the back wall of his office he began scanning for a specific file, he picked out a dark blue box file with ORACLES written in silver paint pen. He carried carefully over to his too cluttered desk and did a hasty rearrange so that he could actually open it. With in were maps, and photos and stone rubbings plus a stack of floppy discs. He snorted when he looked at them and frowned, looking over his tech on the desk he realised he had somehow stopped using the things without realising, there were things on those discs he thought he’d stored for ever but now he had nothing with a floppy drive.

He put it to one side and typed a quick email off to the computer guys over in the admin wing. Maybe they could sort him out a floppy drive. That done he began to flick through the photos – he’d had a thought but it was ephemerial, transient, he was frightened that if he tried to grab it, to hold it tight it would vanish for all time so he was ignoring it for now. He extracted a note book, his from decades ago now, Oracles he was an expert on them and the religous signifigance they had had in the ancient world. He flicked through the slightly crenulated pages, it always managed to rain on his field trips even if he went to the desert which had happened more than enough times. His sketches were immaculate and would have scored zero in a current exam, he had struggled with the concept of a diagram rather than a piece of fine art.

He had sketched and shaded and rendered bueatiful scenes and forgotten to put the grid references on and even if he’d remembered that he would have forgotten to say in which direction he’d been facing. He’d distorted perspective to draw the veiwer into the image. He’d learnt a lot in his first few years and still distractedly forgot it when he was out in the field.

A strange artifact sat rendered in graphite upon the yellowing page, it looked like something you would put liquid in possibly over a fire but that they knew from text and image evidence was seat or thrown for the preistess. An Oracle thrown for want of a better word. Pythia at Delphi and many names else were. All over the place they would spring up. Delphi, now Delphi he loved, Delphi was studdied in much detail since the French had gotten invovled over a hundred years ago. The sight was known, a rich rich archeological site and a place written about endlessly in the litrature both ancient and modern. It had been the centre of the Universe, it’s navel, a place of knowing and foresight. It tugged at him, like it was trying to tell him something, over decades, over centries over millenia.

He moved on to his note book on the Oracle of the Dead reputed to be the gate to the underworld he had been ripped away from the promising excavation in the 1960’s somehting that hurt him to this day. Occasionally young enthusiasts would try and convince the Italian government to let them excavate but they’d blocked off what he had excavated already. He fingered the incomplete journal, part of it had been removed and he assumed destroyed when they had turffed him from the site. Wrapped up next to it was a small impossible object. He tried to ignore it, he should not have had it, he wasn’t even sure what it was, there had been so many of them in the room, a room of the dead, his fingers strayed to it. Reverently he unwrapped it from the maroon hanky, a small glass ring with tiny flecks held within, glinting. From what he had understood of the pictograms they were the denizens of Hades. His thumb gently caressed its surface. He had puzzeled for decades on how these objects had been made, and how they had came to represent the souls of the dead. Not that any of that really helped.

He wrapped it back up and extracted the journal he was looking for. It looked like his private diary, once bitten twice shy and he had had a pretty good memory – better then than now – even for images especially if he’d already drawn them once. Something about this was nagging at him. He sat back and opened the cover.

It is half way through NaNoWriMo and I am in a really good place – I am actually on target to make my 90K! I have broken the 40K barrier with some help from the trip at the weekend! However I will struggle over the next week as I have friends coming to stay and events to tend to (ie work).

I love filling note books up – like paper notebooks. I took this dragon one away with me at the weekend and have filled it up with memories, poems, story concepts and sketches not to mention some story stuff. Yep the whole thing – it wasn’t that big a book and I had already started it as my diary but wasn’t that far into it!

Here I am writing away in the glorious surroundings of the surrealist gallery of the Tate Modern.

We also did a huge chunk of writing at the Institute of Contemporary Arts.

I also did a lot of research for the novel – walking about bits of London where the action unfolds and discovering that the Victoria Line is no longer really juddery meaning there is already one correction to be made 🙂

Last week I made it along to one of the Bristol Write-Ins in the Watershed which was really productive and I am hoping to make it again tonight depending on weather grandparents can be convinced that baby sitting is a good idea 🙂

I would love to complete the main 50 K challenge by the end of this week!