Equoid Read online

  When I manage to get my rebellious gastrointestinal tract under control, I step into a scene worthy of a Hieronymus Bosch triptych. It’s like a stable, only reinforced, and equipped with devices that might in any other context be taken as instruments of torture, or at least evidence for the prosecution in a really serious animal abuse case: heavy shackles chained to concrete pillars, buckets of bloody intestines surrounded by clouds of buzzing flies, the omnipresent stench, humming fans and fluorescent lights. There are two horses present, one of whom appears to be leaning over the side of his stall and nibbling on Greg’s beard with intent to be over-familiar, if Greg’s indignant whimpering is taken into account. But then they notice my arrival. Both heads turn to focus on me. And I freeze, because they’re not horses.

  Being the object of attention of a pair of equoids—pardon me, Police EMOCUM Units—is a chilling experience. Have you ever been to a zoo or wildlife sanctuary and attracted the attention of a lion, tiger, or other big cat? You’ll know what I’m talking about. Except equoids are horse-sized: two or three times as heavy as a (thankfully extinct) saber-toothed Smilodon, four times the weight of a modern Bengal tiger. They aren’t quite in maximum-size Tyrannosaur territory, but they’re not far off, and they’re hot-blooded carnivores. When they focus on you, you simply know that they’re wondering how you’ll taste. It’s a shuddery sensation deep in your gut that makes your balls try to climb up into your belly and hide (if you’re male), and your ringpiece contract (regardless of sex). As they look at me I freeze and break out in a cold fear-sweat. They freeze too, heads pointing at me like gun muzzles.

  Lots of details come into focus: they have no horns. Their eyes are slightly too close together, moved frontally to give them better binocular vision than any normal horse. Their nostrils and mouths look normal at first, but then one of them wrinkles its lips and I see fangs, and the edges of the lips retract much further than is natural for a grass-eater, revealing dentition more like something out of a nightmare concocted by H. R. Giger than anything a horse doctor might recognize. Oh, and the eyes? I mentioned that they’re blue, and they pulse, but did I remember to say that they glow?

  Resting on a stand next to one of the stalls is what passes for a saddle—one with a steel roll cage with wire mesh front and sides, and a police light bar on the roof. Obviously, riding an EMOCUM Unit is not a happy-fun experience. In point of fact, they exude danger so strongly that I’m wondering why the police didn’t ask the saddlery to add machine gun mounts to the rider’s safety cage—it couldn’t be any less subtle.

  “Who the fuck are they planning on deploying these things against?” I ask hoarsely; “An invading Panzer division?” Visions of the carnage after Dudley deploys his EMOCUMs for crowd control at a friendly away match overload even my normally-overactive sense of humor. These beasts are no laughing matter: you don’t mock a main battle tank, either.

  “Grrrrr ...” rumbles equoid number one, inquisitively sizing me up for elevenses.

  “I can’t be sure,” Georgina says thoughtfully, “but if I had to guess, I’d say they’ll come in right handy when the illegal immigrants and bloody hippies in Brighton rise up to burn all us right-thinking people down. But in the meantime, they manufacture a hundred pounds of shit every day, and I can’t even compost it!”

  “Bastards,” Greg mumbles indistinctly, clutching his chin.

  “Do pay attention, I told you not to stand too close!” Georgina shakes her head. “They were a lot smaller when Jack dropped them off,” she adds. She bends down, indicating knee height. “Still vicious as a bear-baiting dog, but at least they were manageable then.”

  “How long ago was that?” I ask, getting an even worse sinking feeling.

  “About three weeks ago. They grow fast.”

  MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

  SECRET

  Procurement Specification: M/CW/20954

  Date of Issue: July 1st, 1940

  Requirement for:

  Charger, Heavy Cavalry Mounted:

  Must replace existing mounts for Horse Guards and other remaining Army Cavalry operational units.

  Mounts should be between 13 and 17 hands high, weight 650–900 lbs, broken to saddle.

  Desirable characteristics:

  Mounts should exhibit three or more of the following traits:

  • Endurance in excess of 6 hours at 30 miles/hour over rough terrain (when ridden with standard issue saddle, rider, and kit)

  • Endurance in excess of 30 minutes at 50 miles/hour on metaled road surfaces (when ridden with standard issue saddle, rider, and kit)

  • Ability to see in the dark

  • Ability to recognize and obey a controlled vocabulary of at least 20 distinct commands

  • Invisible

  • Bulletproof

  • Carnivorous

  • Flight (when ridden with standard issue saddle, rider, and kit)

  State of requirement:

  Unfilled

  CANCELLED April 2nd, 1945

  Reasons for cancellation:

  (1) Impending replacement of horse-mounted cavalry in all future operational roles,

  (2) Procurement and initial delivery of AEC Centurion Mk 1 Universal Battle Tank supersedes requirement M/CW/20954.

  Sitting back in the passenger seat of Greg’s Landy, I massage my head as if I can somehow squeeze the aching contents into a semblance of order. “That was not what I was expecting.”

  “I’ve known Georgina since she was a wee thing, competing in dressage.” Greg huffs for a moment, then produces a pencil case from the pile of debris under the driver’s seat. He extracts what I initially mistake for a gigantic brown spliff. Then he produces a weird multitool, with which he amputates one end, and sets fire to the stump of the reeking roll-up.

  “Careful with that spliff, Eugene,” I start before I realize that it’s actually a cigar, so old and foul that I cough up half a lung before I get the door open and scramble out. “Jesus, Greg!”

  “Sorry, young feller.” He’s clearly unrepentant, but I notice that he’s sucking on it like it’s an asthma inhaler, and his other hand—the one grasping his walking stick—is shaking slightly. “I needs my weed after witnessing a scene like that.”

  “I am going to report this,” I say heavily. “The EMOCUMs, I mean. This is way above my pay grade.”

  “Oh, really? I have never in all my days seen one of you people back down from a red-eyed abomination with too many tentacles—”

  “You’ve never seen us pick a fight with the police, either, have you?” I snap at him, then walk it back: “Sorry, but we work with the boys in blue, they’re not normally the subject of our investigations.” I cough, trying to clear my lungs. They’ve been taking a battering today, between the fetid aroma of carnivore shit in the stables and Greg’s diesel-smoked stogie. “Let me think. Okay, the EMOCUMs aren’t going anywhere right now. They can wait for backup.” (Assuming they’re not actually one of our projects—one that Iris and I don’t know about because we’re not cleared for it. Crazier things have happened. In which case double-checking everything discreetly is the order of the day.) “But, hmm. What do you know about Inspector Dudley? Because he’s the next link in the chain back to wherever they came from . . .”

  The beard shakes like a bush in a hail-storm. “Sorry, lad, I can’t help you. I deal with the likes of Georgina, or Sergeant Irving who runs the station stables in East Grinstead, not the organ grinder hisself.”

  “Who was conveniently present when we came to visit, and then slipped out. Oh shit.”

  “What’s the matter?” Greg takes another epic lungful of vaporized bunker fuel, then his eyes wrinkle up. “You don’t think—”

  “When you sent a memo requesting a liaison visit from Capital Laundry Services, how exactly did you go about it?” I ask. “Did you by any chance ask someone else to send us an email? Someone like—”

  “Gosh, now that you mention it—” He jabs his finge
rs knuckle-deep into his beard and tugs—“I’d ha’ asked the fragrant Melissa to write to you! But I don’t see—”

  I roll my eyes. “Does Melissa have a boyfriend, by any chance?” I ask. “Who might happen to be a member of the local constabulary? Or a father or mother or sister or best pal from her school days, or something? Someone who might know about the EMOCUM procurement program?”

  “Ooh, I see where you’re going.” Greg sighs, then reaches down and stubs out his vile cigar on the underside of his boot. He bags up the remains: I shudder slightly and climb back into the Land Rover’s passenger seat. My stunned nasal passages can’t make any sense out of their environment, but my pupils dilate and my pulse slows thanks to all the nicotine hanging in the air. “You’re wondering where it all came from?”

  “That’s the key question,” I agree, fastening my seat belt and pulling the door closed. “Where did Jack Dudley procure a handful of juvenile unfertilized female unicorns? And who put the idea into his head? Come to think of it, where are those bloody snails coming from? There’s got to be a fertilized female in the sessile spawning phase of its life cycle somewhere hereabouts. It’s one thing for some idiot mounted police officers to think that Baba Yaga’s herd will be good for crowd control duty, but if there’s any leakage—”

  “I’ve got an inkling, but you’re not going to like it. This could be the start of a large-scale outbreak,” Greg says heavily. “A full infestation. Equoids are r-strategy spawners—” he catches my blank look and backs up. “Most organisms follow one of two types of reproductive strategy, young feller. K-selection—few offspring, lots of energy devoted to keeping them alive: that’d be us shaved apes, heh. And then there’s r-selection: spew out thousands or millions of tiny spawn and hope some of them survive. Equoids do that, they spawn like pollen, or flies, or frogs . . . but they’re also parasites that co-opt a host species and use it to nurture their brood. Anyway, the things in the barn, the adult sterile females, they’re unusual. And that’s a warning flag. If I had ter guess what’s going on I’d figure there’s a breeding queen out there who’s worked out a low-cost way to help her spawn make it to adulthood. Something new, not just a single hypnotized girlie. Not sure what, but if we don’t find the queen in time we’re going to be neck deep in unicorns in these parts.” He trails off into a grim and thoughtful silence.

  “I’m going to phone home for support,” I say. “Then while they’re getting the circus loaded, I’ll go pay the inspector a visit. I want to establish the facts on the ground, find out where he’s getting the horses from.”

  “And what then? If you can’t figure it out?”

  “Whatever I find, I’m going to boot it upstairs then take a back seat. Like I said, this is well above my pay grade . . .”

  I’m fairly sure that by this point in my report, you, gentle reader, will doubtless be raising a metaphorical hand, because the questions have been piling up thick and fast and you are reaching the end of your patience. So let me try to set your mind at ease with a quick run through the list of Frequently Asked Questions:

  Q: Unicorns? Are they really this bad?

  A: Yes. I wish I was making this up. Unfortunately old HPL’s experience in his childhood sweetheart’s back yard is about par for the course where those creatures are concerned. We are not in Unicorn School™: The Sparkling territory here. Or even My Little Pony. (Well, except for the Magic bit.)

  Q: But what about the unfertilized ones?

  A: It’s the parasitic life cycle in a nutshell. Parasites, especially those with complex gender dimorphism and hypercastrating behavior (that diverts a host species’ reproductive energies in service to their own goals) generally have some interesting failure modes. Among unicorns, if they don’t mate young they tend not to mate at all—it’s kind of hard for a foot-long cone snail to climb onto the forehead of something that resembles a carnivorous horse, isn’t it? Especially without getting eaten. So the female grows to adult stature but is infertile. What you get is an equoid: an obligate meat-eater the size and shape of a horse, with the appetite of three Bengal tigers and the table manners of a hungry great white shark.

  Q: Why haven’t I heard about these already?

  A: You probably have. There are plenty of legends about them—the mares of Diomedes, the Karkadann of Al-Biruni, the herd of Baba Yaga—but they don’t show up very often in the historic record. This is because people who try to domesticate mature equoids usually end up as equoid droppings.

  Q: But what if you get them young?

  A: Good thinking! If you get them young you can semi-domesticate them. But to get them young, one has to locate a fertile adult in the sessile, spawning phase. (And survive the experience.)

  Q: What are we supposed to do about them?

  A: The sterile adult equoids themselves aren’t necessarily a problem: they’re basically dangerous but dumb. Georgina Edgebaston has been training two of them as EMOCUM Units, but they’re under control. As long as she doesn’t do anything stupid, like hitting one on the forehead with a giant venomous land snail, she’s probably got them contained. I’m much more worried about where they’re coming from. Equoids don’t generally gambol freely on the Southern downs, because the trail of half-eaten children and screaming parents tends to attract attention. This means that there’s probably a nest not too far away. And it is absolutely essential that Greg and I locate the nest so that it can be dealt with appropriately.

  Q: The nest—what does “appropriate” mean in this context?

  A: Let me give you a clue: I start by making some phone calls which, by way of a liaison officer or two, induce the police to evacuate the surrounding area. Then what appears to be a Fire Brigade Major Incident Mobile Command HQ vehicle arrives, followed by a couple of pumps which are equipped to spray something rather more toxic and inflammable than water. Finally, the insurance loss adjusters turn up.

  That’s what is supposed to happen, anyway. If it doesn’t, Plan B calls for the Army to loan us a couple of Apache Longbow helicopter gunships. But we try not to go there; it’s difficult and expensive to cover up an air strike, and embarrassing to have to admit that Plan A didn’t work properly.

  Q: You said equoids aren’t intelligent. But what was all that Yog-Sothoth stuff HPL was gibbering about at the end? What about the mummy-thing—

  A: Don’t you worry your little head about that, it’s above your security clearance. Just take it from me that everything is under control!

  After I phone Iris, to deliver the unwelcome news that this smoke appears to be associated with an ignition source, I continue my investigation by going in search of the inspector.

  There is an old Victorian police station in East Grinstead, complete with the antique blue gas lamp over the main entrance and a transom window (no longer used) just inside the lobby door. It also has a pair of tall gates that open into a courtyard. It currently does duty as a car park for the uniform cars and snatch vans, but one wall of the courtyard is still lined with stalls for the horses, and they’re in good repair.

  I am a civilian, casually dressed. I do not enter the courtyard, but instead walk up to the public entrance, past the information posters (COPPER THEFT: ARE YOU TAKING YOUR LIFE IN YOUR HANDS?), and in to the reception area.

  I stand in front of the desk for almost a minute as, sitting behind it, PC McGarry (number 452) explains the correct protocol for helping scallies fall downstairs in a single-story nick to Constable Savage, a high flyer who has been transferred from Birmingham to expand out his résumé and help bring policing in Ruralshire into the twentieth century. From his shifty, impatient posture it’s obvious that he’d much rather be out on the street monstering chavs. Finally I grow impatient and clear my throat. PC McGarry continues to drone on, obviously enjoying his pulpit far too much to stop, so I pull out my warrant card.

  “’Ere, Fred, don’t you want to ask this gentleman what he’s—” Savage’s eyes are drawn to focus on my card wallet and his voice slows to a stop. �
��What?”

  “Bob Howard, Capital Laundry Services. I’d like to speak to Inspector Dudley.” I smile assertively. Cops are trained to de-prioritize the unassertive. “If I can have a minute of your attention?”

  PC McGarry glances at me, clearly irritated by the interruption. “We don’t need any dry-cleaning—”

  I focus on him, borrowing the full weight of my ID card’s glamor: “Never said you did, mate. I need to see Inspector Dudley. As soon as possible, about a matter of some considerable importance. He won’t thank you for delaying me.”

  McGarry doesn’t want to yield, but my warrant card isn’t going to let him ignore me. “What’s it about?” He demands.

  “DEFRA want all the vaccination records for the new rides he’s commissioning for the mounted unit,” I deadpan. “I just missed him at Edgebaston Farm, but the long arm of the livestock law has a way of catching up.”

  McGarry eyeballs me dubiously, then picks up the phone. “Inspector? There’s a Mr. Hobson from DEFRA down here in reception, says he needs to talk to you—something about Edgehill Farm? No sir, I don’t. Yes, sir.” He puts the phone down. “You. The inspector will be down in a minute.” He points at a chair. “Have a seat.”

  “Don’t mind if I do.” I ignore the chair and walk over to the noticeboard, to read the public information posters while I wait. (STRANGER DANGER! and REMEMBER TO LOCK YOUR DOORS AND WINDOWS: RURALSHIRE REGULARLY GETS VISITED BY TOWNIE SCUM vie for pride of place with IS YOUR NEIGHBOR EMPLOYING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS? It’s like their public relations office moonlights from the BNP.)

  I don’t have to wait long. I hear footsteps, and as I turn, I hear a familiar voice. “You. What do you want?” Inspector Dudley looks somewhat more intimidating in uniform, and he was plenty intimidating before. He stares down at me coldly from behind the crooked bridge of his nose. Luckily I don’t intimidate quite as easily as I used to.