"So are you coming to book club tonight?" Helen asked as she sat down at the kitchen table, spooning sugar into her coffee. Clara glanced up from her course work. She was curled in the threadbare arm chair closest to the radiator struggling with an essay due in two days.
"Maybe." she said evasively, turning her attention back to her text book. Helena sighed.
"Oh come on! That's the third time you'll have missed it! Tonight's that meet and greet thing, you know with all the local writers? I thought you of all people would like that."
"Helen, my books are no good, I've decided just to concentrate on getting through uni."
"You make it sound like a trial." Helen said, rolling her eyes. "Come on, one night off won't kill you."
Clara frowned but was unable to think of a good argument. The truth was she was too lazy to get involved in societies, not like her flat mates who all seemed to have some tournament or other to go to every night. However Helen was correct in assuming Clara was curious about the authors evening. So at seven o clock the two girls wrapped up warm in their thick coats and scarfs before catching a bus to the campus. They hurried into the students' guild shivering from the chill.
They were a little late and their fellow book club members were already milling around the hall they used for meetings. Refreshments had been set out on a table in the corner and the girls made their way over to it, thinking to get a drink before talking to anyone. Halfway there however, Clara spotted a figure in black standing next to the table.
"Oh shit, quick! Turn around, pretend you're talking to me!" she hissed, grabbing Helens arm and yanking her back.
"What? Why?" Helen asked curiously.
"It's that crazy lady I met in the café yesterday! Come on let's just try and avoid -"
"Clara darling!"
"Fuck." Clara breathed, closing her eyes briefly before fixing her face into a mild smile and turning to face the woman who was walking purposefully towards them. "Hello, uh…"
"Pullman, Lilith Pullman. Fancy running into you again." the woman supplied helpfully. Clara nodded weakly and struggled to think of something to say.
"Right, uh, this is my friend Helen." Clara said, dragging Helen forward to share in Lilith's unnerving gaze.
She held herself in a strange, stiff sort of way, like she was uncomfortable in her skin. Or maybe it was just the crisp black suit dress she was sporting. Lilith's eyes slid disinterestedly over Helen and settled back on Clara.
"A pleasure." she said carelessly. "Now Clara, I remember you saying yesterday that you too were a writer."
"Unpublished." Clara repeated wearily. She didn't like having to explain this to strangers, it always made her cheeks warm up. Helen nudged her.
"Only cause those publishers are snobs who don't take anyone without an agent. She's actually really good!"
"I'm alright." Clara conceded modestly. Lilith smiled a somewhat artificial smile. She showed too many teeth for it to be genuine.
"Well this is excellent, you're just what I've been looking for." she said and Clara raised her eyebrows.
"Uh, I am?"
"Indeed. I have an idea for a book I want to write, but I need a second opinion from a young person such as yourself. That's why I came here tonight, looking for fresh talent."
"Oh, right, what's the idea?"
"It's all in here." Lilith said briskly, and she snapped open her briefcase and started rooting around inside. "Now where is it? Ah! Here."
She produced a brown cardboard folder containing several sheets of paper. She handed it to a bemused Clara.
"Tell you what, how about you have a read and tell me what you think at the next meeting? I'd very much appreciate it. Oh is that the time? I really must dash, good evening girls."
And with that she bustled off towards the exit, leaving both Helen and Clara standing there in utter bewilderment.
"Ok, let me be the first to say," Helen said after a stunned pause, "Freak!"
"Yes." Clara nodded in agreement. "Total psycho."
"Well." Helen said, lowering the piece of paper she held so she could look across the living room at Clara. "I think it's safe to say she's clearly deranged."
"I know!" Clara said, riffling through the paper and shaking her head hopelessly. "This stuff is insane! I mean, ok the concept is quite cool, the whole Morrow Days thing, but the writing! It's like she's from the dark ages or something!"
"I haven't seen language this complicated since we had to do Chaucer at A Level!" Helen complained, flinging the papers in the air and watching them float to the ground.
Some fell behind the sofa, others landed on the chipped coffee table. Clara yawned hugely and set her share of the papers to one side. It was well past midnight and she had a lecture at nine the following morning.
"Night." she mumbled and Helen wiggled her fingers, frowning at a particularly strange word on the only page she still held.
"Dame Primus." she muttered under her breath. "Mister Monday, Superior Saturday, it's like a psychiatrics dream!"
Clara snorted as she mounted the creaking stairs. Everything about their flat was a bit on the crap side. Every wall had a patch of damp, ever carpet a hole on which one could trip. The rent was good but they had to put up with a lot to live here. Clara did not think about Lilith Pullman and her strange book much over course of the week.
Her waking hours were too full of day to day problems like work, money and friends, but sometimes before going to bed she would glance at the dossier again and muse over some of the finer points. She found she quite liked the story of the heroic Heir battling evil and corrupt rulers of the universe. But it was far too complicated to understand at the first reading, so she found herself going over it several times.
When Tuesday came around again she hunted all through the house looking for all the loose bits of paper which had somehow been scattered in almost every room. When she finally found the last page hiding under her bed it was almost time to go.
"Oh come on Helen please!" she whined, swinging on the somewhat unstable handle of the bathroom door. "Please don't make me go by myself!"
"Sorry CJ." Helen said through puckered lips as she applied gloss and pouted at the mirror. "Alex and me have a big date tonight."
"But I don't want to face crazy lady alone!" Clara moaned, waving the dossier at her best friend.
"Drag Meg or someone along instead" Helen suggested, now dabbing foundation on her already flawless skin. Clara scowled darkly.
"I can't, she's out with her girlfriend tonight!"
"Freya?"
"Gone home to see James. Damn relationships always getting in the way!"
"Poo CJ, don't worry, you've still got crazy lady."
"Oh goody, what a hot date that'll be." Clara snarled.
So she had to trek into town without back up that evening. Lilith was already at the meeting when Clara showed up and she converged on her before she'd even taken off her bobble hat.
"So? What did you think?" Lilith asked eagerly. Clara took an instinctive step back and wondered vaguely if she would ever be shot of this wacko.
"It's, cool." she said lamely. "Uh, we liked the bad guys especially, they're awesome."
Far from looking pleased at the praise, a shadow passed over Lilith's face. She smoothed it away quickly though and smiled her plastic smile.
"I see, how interesting. How about the Heir and the Will? Do they make good protagonists?"
"Oh yeah, have you decided what the Heir is going to be like?"
"I'm toying with a few ideas." said Lilith mysteriously. Clara held out the dossier for her but she raised her hand and shook her head.
"Oh no dear, you keep it. I might want your opinion again someday when I decide to write it."
Clara had a hard time keeping her eyes from widening in despair and spent the rest of the evening desperately avoiding Lilith. Total and utter stalker alert! When it was time to leave Lilith cornered her at the exit.
"Would you like me to walk you to your cab?" she asked, an intense and seriously creepy look in her eyes.
"No! No I'm fine thanks, don't let me keep you." said Clara, wrestling her coat and escaping as fast as she could. Lilith followed her out into the street and walked with her towards the bus stop.
"I'm ok really, I don't want to make you late for anything." Clara insisted firmly.
"I'm going this way anyway." Lilith replied.
Clara gritted her teeth and prayed for patience. They walked in silence along the pavement. A few drunken revellers were already tottering past them even though it was barely nine. They reached a quiet corner where a flickering street lamp cast a sickly orange glow down on them. It was here that Clara first heard the growl. It made her pause and glance around in alarm.
"What's that?" she asked nervously. Lilith had frozen too and was squinting down a dark alley way beside them.
"No, no surely not, not here!" she murmured to herself. Clara's gaze fixed on the spot too but she couldn't see a thing.
"What –" she began, but a moment later she cut herself off with a high pitched scream.
A creature, a monster, had just jumped out of the shadows towards them. Lilith grabbed Clara's arm tightly and dragged her out of harm's way, causing the thing to miss them by millimetres. It snarled and skidded out into the road. It looked like some grotesque cross ver between a tusked boar and a human. A man's face roared at them as it pawed the ground, readying itself for another attack. Lilith shoved Clara behind her.
"Don't scream! You'll aggravate it!" she warned.
The thing charged. Lilith raised her hand and pointed at the oncoming horror, uttering a strange, guttural word. Pain shot through Clara like a static shock and she clapped her hands over her ears in agony. The monster exploded on the spot. Chunks of charred flesh and fur spattered everywhere and Lilith pushed Clara down out of the way. There was silence for several seconds, punctuated only by Clara's ragged breathing. Finally she broke it by asking,
"What the hell was that?!"
"A Nithling." said Lilith grimly. "Sent to kill us."
"N-nithling?!" Clara repeated, getting shakily to her feet. "But, hang on, aren't Nithlings those thing in the – but they're not real surely!"
"Oh they are very real, and so is everything else I told you about the House." Lilith said. She turned to look at Clara whose eyes and mouth were wide open. When she didn't say anything Lilith went on.
"I am the first part of the Architect's Will, and you are the mortal I have chosen to be the Heir."
There were a few more seconds of stunned silence.
"Take your time." said Lilith, or 'the Will'. "I know this must be a bit of a shock."
Clara made a sound that was half way between a choke and a laugh. It was a hysterical noise. Then she turned and ran for it.
Ah, not quite the reaction the Will had been hoping for.