Abarat: Absolute Midnight by Clive Barker Read Free Book Online

couldn’t have named even though he saw them on Followell Street whenever he’d gone out back. They were lying on the floor, as though some merciless force was pinning their heads to the boards, leaving them to flutter wildly, beating their wings so violently that the air was filled with flecks of feathers, which the constant updraft from the panicked wings below kept in circulation.
    “What is this . . .” he muttered to himself.
    In the dark half of the room, something moved. Something that Bill knew wasn’t a bird.
    “Who’s there?” he said.
    There was a second motion in the dark and something suddenly propelled itself out of the shadows into the wash of moonlight. It landed among the stricken birds no more than a yard or two from where Bill was standing, then leaped up again, so that with its second leap it struck the moonlit wall opposite the door. Bill got only a blurred impression.
    It might have been a brightly colored monkey, except that he’d never seen a monkey move so fast. The motion drove the birds into a fresh frenzy, and some, in their terror, found the strength to escape their pinning. They rose into the middle of the room, apparently unwilling, despite the open roof above them, to depart the presence of whatever had attracted them here in the first place.
    Their excited circling made it even harder for Bill to get a clear sense of the thing.
    What was this strange entity pinned to the wall? It seemed to be made of fabric rather than skin: a patchwork of four, perhaps five, colored materials that ranged from livid scarlet to one of polished black with a dash of vibrant blue.
    The beast didn’t appear to have any recognizable anatomy; there was no sign of anything resembling a head or even any of the features a head might have carried: it had no eyes that Bill could make out, nor ears, nor nose, nor mouth. Bill felt profoundly disappointed. Surely this couldn’t be the answer to the mystery of his nightly searches around town. The answer he’d been seeking had to be something more than some formless scraps of stained felt.
    However, though there was little about the creature he found beguiling, he was still curious about it.
    “What are you?” he asked, more to himself than anything.
    The creature’s response, much to Bill’s surprise, was to stretch out its four extremities and draw all its power into itself. Then it kicked off from the wall and flew at Bill as though plucked by an unseen hand.
    Bill was too slow, too surprised, to avoid it. The thing wrapped itself around him, blinding him completely. In the sudden darkness Bill’s sense of smell worked overtime. The beast stank! It had the stench of a heavy fur coat that had been put away soaking wet and had been left in a wardrobe to rot ever since.
    The stench oppressed him, disgusted him. He grabbed hold of the thing and tried to pull it off his head.
    “Finally,” the creature said, “William Quackenbush, you heard our call.”
    “Get off me!”
    “Only if you will listen to us.”
    “Us?”
    “Yes. You’re hearing five voices. There are five of us, William Quackenbush, here to serve you.”
    “To . . . serve me?” Bill stopped fighting with the thing. “You mean, like, to obey me?”
    “Yes!”
    Bill grinned a spittle-grin. “Anything I say?”
    “Yes!”
    “Then stop smothering me, you damn fools!”
    The five responded, instantly leaping off his head and back onto the wall again.
    “What are you?”
    “Well, why not? If he doesn’t like the truth because it sounds crazy, then he’s learned something hasn’t he?” the thing said to itself. Then it addressed Bill. “We were once five hats, belonging to members of the Noncian Magic Circle. But our owners were murdered and the murderer then celebrated his getting what he wanted by having a heart attack. So we were left looking for someone to give our powers to.”
    “And you chose me.”
    “Of course.”
    “Why ‘of course’? Nobody has ever willingly