The elevator stopped with a jerk that rocked my body, and the pain almost made me cry out. The doors opened, and the Somnambulists bent down, picked me up and carried me out. I didn't try to fight them. Partly because I wasn't in any shape to, but mostly because I was pretty sure they were taking me where I wanted to go - to meet their masters, the Cavendishes. They carried me across an office and dropped me like a rubbish bag before the reception desk. The thick carpet absorbed some of the impact, but it still hurt like hell, and I went away for a few moments.
When I came back, the Somnambulists were gone. I turned my head slowly, cautiously, and saw the door to an inner office closing. I relaxed a little and slowly forced myself up onto my hands and knees. New pains flared up with every move, and I spat mouthfuls of thick and stringy blood onto the luxurious carpet. I ended up sitting awkwardly, favouring the ribs on my left side, leaning the other side carefully against the reception desk for support. Someone was going to pay for this.
I was hurt, shaken, sick, and dizzy, but I knew I had to get my wits back together before the Somnambulists returned, to drag me before the Cavendishes. They didn't want me dead, or at least, not yet. The beating had been to soften me up, before the interrogation. Well, bad luck for them. I don't do soft. I had to wonder what they thought I knew ... I eased a handkerchief out of my pocket with a shaking hand and gently mopped the worst of the blood from my bruised and beaten face. One eye was already so swollen and puffy that I couldn't see out of it. The handkerchief was so much a mess when I'd finished that I just dropped it on the expensive carpet. Let someone else worry about it.
I peered up and over the reception desk, and saw one of those icily gorgeous secretaries who are de rigueur in all the better offices. The kind who would bite their own limbs off before letting you past without an appointment. She studiously ignored me. The phone rang, and she answered it in a cool and utterly business-like way, as though there wasn't a half-dead private eye bleeding all over her lousy carpet. It could have been just another day in any office, anywhere.
I turned around slowly, gritting my teeth against the shooting pains, and put my back against the desk. After I'd got my breath back from the exertion, I realised there were other people in the office apart from me. In fact, there was quite a crowd of them, filling all the chairs, sitting cross-legged on the carpet, and leaning against the walls. Young, slim, fashionable and Goths to a boy and a girl, they lounged bonelessly, flipping through music and lifestyle magazines, chatting quietly and comparing tattoos, and checking out their elaborate make-up in hand mirrors. They all had the same uniform of black on black, pale faces and heavy dark eye make-up. Skin like chalk, eyes like holes - Death's clowns. Piercings and purple mouths and silver ankhs on chains. A spindly girl curled up in a chair noticed me watching and put aside her copy of Bite Me magazine to consider me dispassionately.
"Damn, they really put a world of hurt on you. What did you do to make them mad?"
"I was just being me," I said, trying hard to keep my voice sounding light and effortless. "I have this effect on a lot of people. What are you doing here?"
"Oh, we're all just hanging out. We run errands, sign fan photos for the stars, do a bit of everything really, just to help out. In return, we get to hang, hear all the latest gossip first. And sometimes we even get to meet the stars, when they show up here. Our favourite's Rossignol, of course."
"Of course," I said.
"Oh, she is just the best! Sings like a dark angel, love and death all wrapped up in one easy-on-the-eyes package. She sings like she's been there, and it's all going to end tomorrow ... we all just adore Rossignol!"
"Yeah," said a skull-faced boy, in his best sepulchral growl. "We all love Rossignol. We'd die for her."
"What makes her so special?" I asked. "Worth dying for?"
They all looked at me like I was mad.
"She is just so cool, man!" a barely legal girl said finally, tossing her long black hair angrily, and I knew that was all the answer I was going to get.
"So," said one of the others. "Are you, you know, anyone?"
"I'm John Taylor," I said.
They all looked at me blankly and went back to their magazines and their conversations. If you weren't in the music biz, you weren't anyone. And none of them gave a damn about my condition or predicament. They wouldn't risk doing anything that might get them banned from the office and their chance to meet the stars. Fans. You have to love them.
The door to the inner office swung open, and the Somnambulists reappeared. They headed straight for me, and I tried not to wince. They picked me up with brutal efficiency and half carried, half dragged me into the inner office. They dumped me on the floor again, and it took me a moment to get my breath back. I heard the door close firmly shut behind me. I forced myself up onto my knees, and then two hands slapped down hard on my shoulders to keep me there. Two stern figures were standing before me, wearing matching frowns, but I deliberately looked away. The inner office was surprisingly old-fashioned, almost Victorian in its trappings - all heavy furniture and solid comforts. Hundreds of identical books lined the walls, looking as old and well used as the furniture. No flowers here. The room smelled close and heavy, like clothes that had been worn too long.
Finally, I looked at my hosts. The Cavendishes resembled long spindly scarecrows clad in undertakers' cast-offs. Even standing still, there was something awkward and ungainly about them, as though they
might topple over if they lost concentration. Their clothes were City Gent, both the man and the woman - characterless, anonymous, timeless. Their faces were unhealthily pale, the skin unnaturally perfect, without flaw or blemish, with that tight, taut look that usually comes from too many face-lifts. I didn't think so, in their case. The Cavendishes' faces were unlined because they'd probably never experienced an honest emotion in their lives.
They both stepped forward suddenly, to stand right in front of me, and their movements were eerily synchronised. Mr. Cavendish had short dark hair, a pursed pale mouth, and a flat, almost emotionless glare, as though I was less an enemy than a problem that needed solving. Mrs. Cavendish had long dark hair, good bone structure, a mouth so thin there were hardly any lips to it, and exactly the same eyes.
They made me think of spiders, contemplating what their web had brought them.
"You have no business here," the man said suddenly, the words cold and clipped. "No business. Isn't that right, Mrs. Cavendish?"
"Indeed it is, Mr. Cavendish," said the woman, in a very nearly identical voice. "Up to no good, I'll be bound."
"Why do you interfere in our business, Mr. Taylor?" said the man.
"You must explain yourself," said the woman.
Their manner of speech was eerily identical, almost without inflection. Their gaze bored into mine, stern and unblinking. I tried a friendly smile, and a thin rill of blood spilled down my chin from a split lip.
"Tell me," I said. "Is it really true you're brother and sister as well as husband and wife?"
I braced myself for the beating, but it still hurt like hell. When the Somnambulists finally stopped, at some unseen signal, it was only their grip on my shoulders that kept me upright.
"We always use Somnambulists," said the man. "The very best kind of servants. Isn't that so, Mrs. Cavendish?"
"Indeed yes, Mr. Cavendish. No back talk, and no treacherous independence."
"Good help is so hard to find these days, Mrs. Cavendish. A sign of the times, I fear."