Bag of Weasels. Chapter 10

The rattle of keys being put to a lock, and the creaking turn of an opening door. We'd come in the side door, but that was the front door, and we were sat on the stairs right in front of it.
We scrambled back and fell up the stairs and crouched behind the banister, no time to go any further.
The door was being opened with everyday confidence, swung wide and breezy. Who, I wondered, would be so free and easy, strolling into a deserted house in the middle of the night? It must be Men in Grey again.
In the door space, I could see a black silhouette framed by orange street light. It spoke: "Someone's here, then. I'm sure there is. Are you hiding? It was a she.
"Come on, show yourselves, stop skulking.
We skulked and hid.
The silhouette stepped in with a clank and disappeared into the darkness of the hallway,
clank rattle clank, and into the deeper dark of downstairs, taking her clanking with her. I could see disorientating patterns in the blackness, and was worried I'd fall over but I daren't speak: I remembered how this house threw sounds around. Ralph was given over to listening, and he was all tension. I grabbed a banister for balance.
The clanking had stopped. The house started up its creaking. The more I listened, the more it spread. Was that footsteps? Someone leaning on a creaky wooden wall? Christ-on-a-bike the place kicked up a racket, and now a chorus of creaks surrounded us; it sounded like a ship at sea, louder and louder, until...
"You look like a pair of trapped rats, you soppy sods.
She'd tricked us. She'd ceased to clank, and got right up behind us.
She laughed, sort of friendly, but aimed at us. "Apart from cowering on stairways, have you two got anything else you can muster?
She'd scared us. Scared me definitely. Don't go scaring Ralph though. He stood up, a rising black wall in the dark, blotting me out of the scene. I could feel the buzz coming off him, and stayed on the safe side, peering round his back where I could see the other black silhouette, as skinny as me. Not quite as tall.
Ralph stayed still.
There was a flash in the darkness, just above Ralph's head, and he flinched back a midge-length. A lighter, held up by our new arrival, spat flickering light over us. I could just see her in the jumping shadows, her long rain mac and her big woolly hat. I couldn't make out her features, but I could see the light flashing off the big knife in her left hand.
"Hi! She said, all breezy, like we were in the park.
"What's the knife for? Ralph stepped in, treading carefully, but treading all the same.
"Sorry, how rude of me, I s'pose I won't be needing it. She sounded sarky, but she slipped the blade into her mac pocket.
"Take your hand back out. Empty.
She did. "There. Just a precaution, mate, I'm sure you understand, eh? I'm sure I'd have seen her wink, if I could have seen her face. Ralph remained lump-like.
She tried again to break the ice: "I'm Banksy,
My nerves wouldn't suffer it: "I'm Sunny, I piped up, sticking my head round Ralph.
"Say hello, Ralph, I hissed in the darkness, loud enough for all London to hear.
He stayed silent.
"This is Ralph, I said, jumping in again, god-help-me, and he stamped back on my shin and I bit back a yelp, which escaped as a squeak and got this Banksy jumping back fast.
"Look, there's two of you, one of me, two blokes and a girl, she said quick, her breeziness all blown away. "There's no need to get heavy.
Maybe that's what Ralph needed to hear. Now he was in charge; he relented.
"¦Hello.
The energy changed. The stand-off was done with. Ralph, the big lump ' he went all bashful now he wasn't going to war, shuffling his feet and shifting about. I appeared at his side and we two peered at her and she peered at us. Then she let the lighter go out, plunging the hall into darkness and me into patterns, and grabbed our hands. Held them, no less. Now me and Ralph, we'd linked up close but we were still strangers to human contact. Been so long it felt like never, and given the choice I'd decline the offer. But this girl out of the darkness wasn't one to be fazed. We were astounded, properly freaked.
"I don't make snap decisions boys, so consider yourselves special. I don't like strangers any more than you, but these are changing times, and I guess we've gotta keep up and change too.
I'm glad you're here, and it's great to have you here. 
That was a bit cheeky; it wasn't her place. I'd been here first. Her confidence was intimidating, although she didn't feel like a maindrag type; I didn't feel any staring down, or looking straight through.
"You following something? She asked.
"Yes, said Ralph. He could drop a word like that and make it echo for ages.
"I guessed as much. So am I, She answered, "There's a lot of it going on you know. I've seen enough dirty beggar boys and losers like yourselves, all up and moving. Never seen such a bunch of not-rights get about with such determination, like they've all woken up from their dopy half-lives, heard some dog whistle that's calling them over.
"You should have seen them out past Kilburn, yelling out to each other to read the words appearing in their clapped out squats and burnt out hang outs, as the places came to life around them.
"Only weeks before they were stabbing each other for the price of a bag.
And right on top of that little occurrence, out came the vans and gathered them up.
Blamed it on madness, on disorder. And that can't be, so out they come, to gather them up, and make them well again. Then they can all get back to killing themselves. That's the way it is.
She was a bit nuts, then. But I knew those vans.
"But you've gotta get wise boys. Get your wits about you. I mean, you never asked how I got up behind you.
"I was working it out. Said Ralph. I'd just assumed she was good at sneaking.
"Come over here, She took us over to a tiny door in the wall, about waist high, and shaped like a jumped on square.
"I came up here, you daft sods, she said, and opened the tiny door.
"You seen the tower, from outside anyway?
I had, when I'd stayed here before. I'd stepped into it down on the ground floor last time. But the stairs came to a dead end from there, a ceiling had cut them off, I thought, and that's as far as I'd gone. I hadn't seen this door, perhaps I'd dismissed it as merely a cupboard. Not like me though, being curious.
She leaned in, picked up a bag tucked round the door, and stepped in.
Now, she clanked when she walked: her bag was full of metal.
"What's in the bag?
"My locks, She told me, and flipped the lid of the satchel to show me. I was thinking locks of hair, romantic notions of collected clumps from friends and lovers.
But just as she said, it was full of locks: Chubb, Yale, and keys for them too. And screwdrivers, chisels, a hammer and a crowbar. All nestling on a bed of loose screws and nails.
"I move at night and secure my premises. I'm good at what I do. People don't look when you use a key. Come through the front like you own the place.
I liked the sound of her, alright. She knew her stuff.
"And I always know when it's been left. Things tell me.
Yeah I knew that too. I reckoned she was one of us alright.
Banksy led me further in, and flashed her lighter again. "Found some stuff in here that might interest you, Sunny boy, she said as she leant down in the dark.
She scraped about in there for a minute, then stood back up. "Here it is. Have a look.
There were papers in her hands. Two different piles. One was fresh, and like what I'd found before. But she was holding up some other batch, much older.
We came out of the space and I took the clump of papers, while Banksy leaned in close with her lighter.
They were curling up at the edges, spots of black mould and the smell to go with them speckled the pages and covered the corners. Tiny spiders fell out from between the pages. The words were clear enough:

'
I came through here in desperation and the heat of the chase. I had followed the jester, the joker, the ghost the spirit, that came out to tell me the tale, and led me across the city in its thrall.
It first came out one night away from here, in Epping Forest as I tried to sleep. It stepped straight out of the fire, like a flame come free and walking.
It spoke. It told me it was old, older than the oldest building. Older than the oldest history.
But not older than the oldest memory, the memory where it still scratched and smouldered, the last spark of a great spirit-fire.
It had been strong before the people came, and when they did they felt the spirit and knew, and marked the place. They knew the power of place. From trees and rivers to sites of power. They knew how to work it. Here and across the land. They walked the lines between.
Rome came and stifled them, stamped out the flame, but they hid under the name of Mithras, and it took that form, and they built temples and searched out the light and power, the freedom offered by land and river and place. Again they walked the lines.
But then the churches came and the plans of alignment disrupted the power, and fires raged and illness and disease and fear crawled across the city space, and clogged the lines and spaces.
It said to me: "Two thousand years I lay forgotten. No longer Mithras, or the jester or the ghost. I am now naked.
"Follow me. Walk the lines. Bring them back. One last time. Shine with me.
And so I did. I walked in from the forest and into the streets. Through houses and parks and factories and schools and private places and public squares, for the lines had been crossed by buildings and walls and fences and the obstructions of centuries, many since the lines had been walked freely. But I was kept cloaked and obscured so none could waylay me.
I cannot stop. I can only leave my mark. But I am not enough. More must follow.
I hope in time the lines will rise. Know, believe, and you will walk with me.
Follow me. In light.'

"How old is this? I asked.
"Dunno, how would I? answered Banksy. "It's been lying around for a while. It was covered in crap.
"We're not the first, that's what its saying, spoke up Ralph, all mysterious.
Me and Banksy, we looked up for more.
"We're on the same path as whoever wrote this. We are walking the lines. We are doing what they asked, before we even knew it. Said Ralph, as explanation.
"What lines? I had to ask.
The lines mentioned on that mouldy piece of paper, said Ralph, getting grouchy again.
"I don't know what the lines are, for real. But I get the feeling, had it for some time, from back before we met, that this is what I was doing. Treading an old path, an old line if you like. I can't put it better than that, it just feels like the way.
I'd felt like that since we came up from the river, but hadn't tried to put it into words. But then I've had all sorts of strange feelings over time, and have learnt not to mention it too much.
Never seemed wise to share it.
Banksy chipped in: "Look, you're not the first and you're not the only ones. Something's happening in this town, something bigger than us and this house and whatever we might make of it. I've been around, you know, and I'll start to show you in the morning. But it's double late, and we need to rest. I do anyway.