Weaveworld

3

Less than thirty minutes later, Hobart pushed the door of the hotel suite open. The room was still warm with the woman’s breath. But she and her nigger had gone.

Again! How many times in the last months had he stood in their litter and breathed the same air she’d breathed, and seen the shape of her body left on the bed? But always too late. Always they were ahead of him, and away, and all he was left with was another haunted room.

There would be no restful nights for him, no, nor peaceful days, until she was caught and under his thumb. Her capture had become his obsession; and her punishment too.

He knew all too well that in this decadent age, when every perversion had its apologist, she would be eloquently defended once caught. That was why he came in search of her personally. he and his few, so that he might show her the true face of the Law before the liberals came pleading. She would suffer for what she’d done to his heroes. She would cry out for mercy, and he would be strong, and deaf to her pleas.

He had an ally in this of course: Shadwell.

There was not one amongst his superiors in the Force whom he trusted as he trusted that man; they were like twin souls. He took strength from that.

And, oddly, from the book too, the book of codes that he’d taken from her. He’d had the volume studied minutely; the paper and the binding, all analysed for some hidden significance. None had been found. Which left the words and the pictures. These too had been studied by experts. The stories were apparently quite straightforward faery-tales. The illustrations, like the text, also pretended innocence.

But he wasn’t fooled. The book meant something more than Once upon a time, he didn’t doubt that for an instant. When he finally had the woman to himself, he’d burn its meaning from her, and no faint-heart would stop him.