The Quorum by Kim Newman Read Free Book Online Page B

fuses fell. For the sake of her child, she couldn’t die.
    ‘Careful,’ she said...
    The ceiling burst and a billow of flame shot into the office, flattening everyone. A dead human shape thumped onto the desk, covered in burning jelly. Sally’s ears were hammered by the blast. The stench of evaporating goo was incredible. Metal wrenched and complained. Hot rivets rained onto the fitted carpet. She heard screaming. A raft of steel and plaster bore down on Quilbert and Tiny. The windows had blown out, and the air was full of flying shards, glinting and scratching. She felt a growing power deep inside her and knew she would survive.
    The cloud of flame burned away almost instantly, leaving little fires all around. Drache stumbled, a bloody hand stuck to half his face, and sank to his knees, shrieking. Sally was flat on her back, looking up at the ceiling. She saw night sky and felt the updraught as the accumulated misery of months escaped to the Heavens like prayers.
    * * *
    They kept her in hospital for weeks. Not the same one as Drache and Quilbert, who were private, and certainly not in the department that had received the still officially unidentified van driver. She only had superficial injuries, but in her condition the doctors wanted to be careful with her.
    She read the media pages every day, following the ripples. In the week before the auction, the consortium fell apart. Mausoleum Pictures, wildly over-extended, went bust, bringing down yet another fifth of the British Film Industry. Tiny promised Survival Kit would be back as soon as he was walking, but he’d have to recruit a substantially new staff since almost everyone who had worked in the now-roofless Mythwrhn Building was seeking employment elsewhere. Most wanted to escape from television altogether and find honest work.
    The police had interviewed her extensively but she pleaded amnesia, pretending to be confused about what had happened just before the ‘accident’. No charges against her were even suggested. Mythwrhn even continued to pay her salary even though she’d given notice. After the baby, she would not be returning.
    Derek Leech, never officially involved in the consortium, said nothing and his media juggernaut rolled on unhindered by its lack of a controlling interest in a franchise. GLT, somewhat surprised, scaled down their bid and fought off a feeble challenge at auction time, promising to deliver to the British Public the same tried-and-tested programme formulae in ever-increasing doses. On Cowley Mansions , Peter the gay yuppie had a son-brother and, salary dispute over, the ghost of Ell Crenshaw possessed her long-lost sister.
    Apart from the van driver and Drache, who lost an eye, nobody had really been punished. But none of them benefited from the Device either. All the gathered misery was loose in the world.
    The day before she was due out, April and Pomme visited. April was taking it ‘one day at a time’ and Pomme had discovered a miracle cure. They brought a card signed by everybody on Survival Kit except Tiny.
    The women cooed over Sally’s swollen stomach and she managed not to be sickened. She felt like a balloon with a head and legs and nothing she owned, except her nightie, fit any more.
    She told them she’d have to sell the flat and get a bigger one or a small house. She’d need more living space. That, she had learned, was important.

LEECH
ISLE OF DOGS, 1961
    Born of filth, he stood on the river-bed, feet anchored, completely submerged. A lily of hair floated on the surface. His buoyant arms rose like angel wings. Though weak, standing by the dock current streamed at his back. The river worked to uproot him.
    He opened his eyes; his first image was green murk, shadows filtering down. Before the murk, there was nothing. He was new-formed. Yet his mind was full: he had language, knowledge, purpose. He had a name: Leech.
    For a moment, he hesitated, suspended. The water was warm. It was all he had ever known. To leave